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MADAME BOVARY 


UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME 


MANON LESCAUT 

by The Abbe Prevost 

Translated from the French 
With an Introduction 
by Burton Rascoe 


In Preparation : 
MLLE. DE MAUPIN 
by Theophile Gautier 


MADAME 

BOVARY 


BY 

Gustave Flaubert. 

Translated from the French 

by ELEANOR MARX' AVELING 

with an Introduction 
by BURTON RASCOE . 


NEW YORK 
ALFRED r A r KNOPF 
1919 

Copy <2 . 




COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY 
ALFRED A. KNOPF, Inc. 


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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 


TO 

MARIE-ANTOINE-JULES SENARD 

MEMBER OF THE PARIS BAR 

EX-PRESIDENT OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, AND FORMER 
MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR 


Dear and Illustrious Friend, — 

Permit me to inscribe your name at the head of this book, 
and above its dedication; for it is to you, before all, that I 
owe its publication. Reading over your magnificent defence, 
my work has acquired for myself, as it were, an unexpected 
authority. Accept, then, here, the homage of my gratitude, 
which, how great soever it is, will never attain the height of 
your eloquence and your devotion. 

GUSTAVE FLAUBERT 


Paris, 12 April 1857 



INTRODUCTION 


T HERE would be no point at this late date in offer- 
ing prefatory remarks on Madame Bovary were 
it not that a sound English version in a wholly 
acceptable format has not hitherto been readily accessible. 
As it is, most English readers have read about Flaubert's 
realistic masterpiece and few have actually read it. Flauber - 
tian exegesis steadily accumulates and Madame Bovary may 
end by being more commented on than the Book of Genesis. 
M. Jules Gaultier has evolved from its slender thesis (if it 
have one ) a whole book of platitudinous philosophy which 
be calls “Bovaryism.” M. Paul Bourget , the parlor 
psychologist, has, from the meat of Flaubert, made a pi- 
quant, if unsustaining extract, relished by the amateurs 
of the Psychologie Contemporaine. M. Emile Faguet, 
the French Brander Matthews, has inspected Flaubert's 
sentence structure with a grammatical microscope and found 
evidences of (to him ) appalling verbal miscegenation. M. 
Maxime du Champ has proved that Flaubert was an epilep- 
tic and the Messrs. Rene Descharmes and Rene Dumesnil 
have proved that he was not. Mr. James Huneker, the 
critical Crichton of the fine arts, has tracked down the 
model for Emma Bovary and told us wherein the real Emma's 
history differed from that of her fictional prototype. Mr. 
Arthur Symons and M. Remy de Gourmont, Mr. Havelock 
Ellis and M. Anatole France, Mr. Henry James and Dr. 
Georg Brandes, Friedrich Nietzsche and Louis Bertrand, 
[ vii ] 


INTRODUCTION 


— high and low , little and big, critics in all countries have 
at one time or another contributed something in explanation 
oj a book which stands in no very urgent need oj explanation . 

Indeed, so much has been written about Flaubert and 
about Madame Bovary that it would be unusual if, in all 
this voluminous comment, there were not a modicum oj 
nonsense. Mr. Knopf fears there is, and I share his trep- 
idation. He suspects, and I concur, that the novel itself 
is worth all and more than has been written about it. Per- 
spicacious in matters relating to the book trade it was he 
who informed me that while books and essays about Flaubert 
were everywhere obtainable, a worthy and attractive edition 
of Madame Bovary in English did not exist. And per- 
spicacious in matters relating to books themselves, it was 
he who suggested that Madame Bovary be made the first 
item in this, we hope, salutary series of translations. 

“Isn't Arthur Symons' dictum that Madame Bovary 
cannot be translated a rather sweeping and dubious state- 
ment?" he asked me. And I assured him that it was, 
and that furthermore we had here hit upon an example 
of that critical nonsense of which I spoke a moment ago. 
For it was Mr. Symons, usually an ingenious, careful, 
and resourceful critic, who nodded while his pen wrote: 
“Flaubert is so difficult to translate because he has no 
fixed rhythm; his prose keeps step with no regular march 
music. He invents the rhythm of every sentence, he changes 
his cadence with every mood or for the convenience of every 
fact." That sounds prodigious truly and it has been 
frequently quoted. It is enough to deter the timid from 
any attempt to enjoy one of the great masterpieces of liter- 
ature. But, after all, Mr. Symons really means nothing 
in particular by it. Every writer who does not cast all his 
[ viii ] 


INTRODUCTION 


thoughts in the same stylistic mould, who does not habitually 
employ a monotone, invents the rhythm of every sentence. 
That is not to say, any more than did Flaubert, that the 
writer determines arbitrarily beforehand that this sentence 
will contain two anapests and a dactyl, that the next one 
will be made up of a definite number of iambics, and the 
one beyond will be a judicious mixture of iambics, dactyls, 
and trochees . That would be a more imbecilic procedure 
than is customarily attributed to genius. It merely means 
that Flaubert wrote in a more flexible and “natural” style 
while composing Madame Bovary than, say, Carlyle 
wrote in composing Sartor Resartus or Anatole France 
in composing Thai’s. Far from being extremely diffi- 
cult to translate Madame Bovary is actually very easy. 
For Flaubert's images are definite; he dispenses almost 
altogether with metaphor; he employs few circumlocutions; 
he is direct, incisive, and clear. His “style,” in Madame 
Bovary at least, may almost be said not to exist. What he 
has to say is the important thing. English readers may 
read this version, then, with assurance that what they miss 
in not being able to read the original is of no real conse- 
quence. 

Of the novel it may be said that all our modern realistic 
novels date from it. It was the first blast in reaction to 
the stifling and narcotic romanticism of the French Chateau- 
briand and the English Walter Scott, the first modern 
attempt to record life with all possible exactitude and without 
moral prepossessions. The influence of Madame Bovary, 
direct or indirect, may be found in the work of Conrad and 
Hardy, of Hergesheimer, of Galsworthy and of Bennett , 
of Wells and of Dreiser, of Maupassant and of Gissing — 
in the larger part of latter-day fiction. Mr. Hergesheimer 
[ix] 


INTRODUCTION 


in creating Taou Yuen wrote with that same effort at im- 
personal and detached consideration which Flaubert had 
established as an artistic desideratum in creating Emma 
Bovary . 

This impersonality , of course , is inevitably only a seem- 
ing one, the removal of the obvious traces of the writer’s 
personality. No one , actually , with the possible exception 
of a Buddhist priest in meditation before an idol , ever 
viewed anything in a thoroughly detached fashion. An 
author s character must invariably be only the author’s 
conception of that character. But so long as the author’s 
personal ethics do not obtrude , this realistic semblance is 
obtained and the character takes on flesh and blood. The 
greatest success at characterization is, of course, when the 
author works from data of his own experience. That is 
why, to me, the important character in Madame Bovary 
is not Emma Bovary but Homais. Superb, almost inimi- 
table, is her portrait, she yet remains a portrait to me, while 
Homais is a man I talked to only yesterday. Homais, 
I think, is one of the most perfectly realized characters in 
all fiction. He is, as Mr. Huneker says, “a synonym 
for pedantic, bragging mediocrity.” He is more: he is 
the compendium of human imbecility, the archtype of the 
conceited fathead. He is to be found everywhere, in Yon- 
ville and in Dubuque, in Paris and in Dublin, in Stockholm 
and in Yokohama. He is an universal personage, a 
type, and yet he is astoundingly alive and individual. 
In Greenwich Village, New York, Homais is the super- 
ficial Freudian who discovers a phallic symbol in every- 
thing and in everyone an incipient or chronic neurosis. 
In small towns he is the gabbling atheist, ready at every 
mention of religious faith to quote a passage from Robert 
[x] 


INTRODUCTION 


Ingersoll. He haunts the bookshops reading Tom Paine . 
He is the seedy radical and the country veterinarian. In 
some circles he is the propounder of the mechanist theory , 
the facile “thinker” who would reduce imponderables to 
principles as simple as his own intellectual processes. 
In Jena in the person of Ernst Haeckel he wrote The 
Riddle of the Universe and at East Aurora , N. Y., he 
published the Fra and the Philistine. In London he was 
the Wells who wrote God the Invisible King, and in 
Paris he was Remy de Gourmont when he wrote Physique 
de P amour. Homais is in all of us, more or less, who 
live not by simple faith, and I am convinced that when 
Flaubert created him he knew whereof he spoke. Yes, 
Homais is human, the homo sapiens in its most definitively 
ironic usage. He is likeable and detestable ; we are in- 
terested in him, and we want to boot him. 

Of the shallow-pated, neurasthenic, passionless Emma, 
reams have been written. But Flaubert has summed her 
up in a brilliant flash. She has had an interrupted ren- 
dezvous with her lover in the cathedral; he sends for a cab. 

‘“Ah! Leon! Really — I don't know — if I 
ought , 9 she whispered . Then with a more serious 
air, ‘Do you know, it is very improper ? 9 

“‘How so ? 9 replied the clerk. ‘It is done in 
Paris . 9 

“And that, as an irresistible argument, decided her.” 

Whatever was done in Paris that would the ever aspir- 
ingly imitative Emma do, Emma the supreme example 
of Bovaryism, the pitiably universal attempt of human 
beings to seem otherwise than they are. In a delightful 
essay Marian Cox has written: “Every woman is born 


INTRODUCTION 


with the compact soul of a snob and seeks instinctively any 
source of power with which she can express her true nature , 
imperialistically , in snubs and display .'* Whether that 
is wholly true is open to question , but it at least admirably 
expresses Emma Bovary. Nor, on the whole, is Emma a 
disagreeable character. Flaubert was no misogynist and 
in creating Emma Bovary he had no motive of revealing 
in a type the sinister aspect of the other sex. He accounts 
for her character, by a detailed and elaborate depiction 
of her development. An impressionable , full-blooded country 
girl, brought up in drably monotonous surroundings, she 
fills her head with impossible dreams of romance from 
the tinsel novels of the period. She is married to a middle- 
aged, stupid widower with the rather to be expected results. 
“Woman,” says Remy de Gourmont, “begins by loving 
a man and ends by loving love.” The commonplace Bo- 
vary, who was her first love, fell short of what her expectations 
had led her to believe love had to offer, and she turned to 
loving love, in the convenient form first of a squire who 
escapes her, and then of Leon the young law student. And, 
records Flaubert, “Emma found again in adultery all 
the platitudes of marriage.” 

Gustave Flaubert was born in Rouen on December 12, 
1821. His formal education was slight but his range of 
reading wide. He was living in the Rue Murillo in Paris 
when Anatole France first went to visit him. France's 
impression of him at the time is thus recorded in the Second 
Series of On Life and Letters ( translated by A. W. Evans 
in the fine John Lane edition): “All my life long I had never 
seen anything like him. He was tall and broad-shouldered ; 
he was huge, splendid, and sonorous . He wore easily a 
sort of chestnut-colored cloak, a regular pirate's garment ; 
[xii] 


INTRODUCTION 


ample trousers Jell over his heels like a petticoat. Bald 
and hairy , with wrinkled brows , keen eyes , red cheeks, and 
colorless, hanging moustache, he was in real life all that we 
read of the old Scandinavian chiefs whose blood flowed, 
though not without some mixture, in his veins. . . . Gus- 
tave Flaubert was very good natured. He had a prodigious 
capacity for enthusiasm and sympathy. That was why 
he was always in a rage. He went to war on every possible 
occasion, having continually an insult to avenge. He was 
in the same case as Don Quixote, for whom he had so high 
a regard. ... I had scarcely been five minutes in Flau - 
bert’s company when the small drawing-room, hung with 
Oriental tapestry, was streaming with the blood of twenty 
thousand slaughtered Philistines . As he walked back- 
wards and forwards, the good-natured giant crushed beneath 
his heels the municipal councillors of Rouen. He plunged 
both his hands into the entrails of M. Saint-Marc Giradin. 
He nailed to the four walls the palpitating limbs of M. 
Thiers, whose crime, I believe, was that he had written of 
grenadiers biting the dust on ground that had been muddied 
by rain. . . 

This impression of Flaubert is borne out by Maxime 
du Champ and by Remy de Gourmont. The latter says 
that Flaubert had a most trying disposition ; that he went 
into a furor while expressing his literary convictions ; 
and that at other times he became profoundly melancholic. 
But, says Gourmont, so painstaking and laborious was his 
method of composition, so meticulous was he in choosing 
the right word, that his finished work had a plastic per- 
fection and, surprisingly, (i this great barbarian, vulgar 
and obstinate, produced work that was calm, noble, and 
beautiful .” 


[ xi» ] 


INTRODUCTION 


The discussion oj Flaubert's physical condition , and the 
disputes as to whether his nervous Jits were epileptic or not , 
need not concern us here . At all events he died in Rouen 
on May 18 , 1880 oj a paralytic stroke . He was one oj the 
most disinterested labourers in the interest of art that ever 
lived. He was concerned not at all with the sale oj his 
books and was interested solely in achieving with them 
as great a perjection as possible. With Madame Bovary 
be gave the world a work oj jiction, comparable even with Don 
Quixote and probably oj even greater influence than has 
been Cervantes' novel. It is curious , too , to rejlect that a 
novel so eminently devoid oj carnal passages and so moral 
in content was banned on its publication in Jree France 
and its author and publisher were brought into the dock. 
Assuredly artistic Jreedom has progressed in France. 
Perhaps it may not be altogether stijled here. 

Burton Rascoe 


[ xiv ] 


PART I 



MADAME BOVARY 


i 

W E were in class when the head-master came 
in, followed by a “new fellow,” not wearing 
the school uniform, and a school servant 
carrying a large desk. Those who had been asleep woke 
up, and everyone rose as if just surprised at his work. 

The head-master made a sign to us to sit down. 
Then, turning to the class-master, he said to him in a 
low voice — 

“Monsieur Roger, here is a pupil whom I recommend 
to your care; he’ll be in the second. If his work and 
conduct are satisfactory, he will go into one of the upper 
classes, as becomes his age.” 

The “new fellow,” standing in the corner behind the 
door so that he could hardly be seen, was a country lad 
of about fifteen, and taller than any of us. His hair was 
cut square on his forehead like a village chorister’s; he 
looked reliable, but very ill at ease. Although he was 
not broad-shouldered, his short school jacket of green 
cloth with black buttons must have been tight about 
the armholes, and showed at the opening of the cuffs 
red wrists accustomed to being bare. His legs, in blue 
stockings, looked out from beneath yellow trousers, 
drawn tight by braces. He wore stout, ill-cleaned, hob- 
nailed boots. 


[33 


MADAME BOVARY 


We began repeating the lesson. He listened with all 
his ears, as attentive as if at a sermon, not daring even 
to cross his legs or lean on his elbow; and when at two 
o’clock the bell rang, the master was obliged to tell him 
to fall into line with the rest of us. 

When we came back to work, we were in the habit of 
throwing our caps on the ground so as to have our 
hands more free; we used from the door to toss them 
under the form, so that they hit against the wall and 
made a lot of dust: it was “the thing.” 

But, whether he had not noticed the trick, or did not 
dare to attempt it, the “new fellow” was still holding 
his cap on his knees even after prayers were over. It 
was one of those head-gears of composite order, in which 
we can find traces of the bearskin, shako, billycock hat, 
sealskin cap, and cotton night-cap; one of those poor 
things, in fine, whose dumb ugliness has depths of ex- 
pression, like an imbecile’s face. Oval, stiffened with 
whalebone, it began with three round knobs; then came 
in succession lozenges of velvet and rabbit-skin sepa- 
rated by a red band; after that a sort of bag that 
ended in a cardboard polygon covered with complicated 
braiding, from which hung, at the end of a long, thin 
cord, small twisted gold threads in the manner of a 
tassel. The cap was new; its peak shone. 

“Rise,” said the master. 

He stood up; his cap fell. The whole class began to 
laugh. He stooped to pick it up. A neighbour knocked 
it down again with his elbow; he picked it up once more. 

“Get rid of your helmet,” said the master, who was 
a bit of a wag. 

There was a burst of laughter from the boys, which 

[ 4 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


so thoroughly put the poor lad out of countenance that 
he did not know whether to keep his cap in his hand, leave 
it on the ground, or put in on his head. He sat down 
again and placed it on his knee. 

“Rise,” repeated the master, “and tell me your name.” 

The new boy articulated in a stammering voice an 
unintelligible name. 

“Again!” 

The sr me sputtering of syllables was heard, drowned 
by the tlaering of the class. 

“Louder!” cried the master; “louder!” 

The “new fellow” then took a supreme resolution, 
opened an inordinately large mouth, and shouted at 
the top of his voice as if calling someone the word “Char- 
bovari.” 

A hubub broke out, rose in cresendo with bursts of 
shrill vocies (they yelled, barked, stamped, repeated 
“Charbovari! Charbovari!”), then died away into single 
notes, growing quieter only with great difficulty, and now 
and again suddenly recommencing along the line of a 
form whence rose here and there, like a damp cracker 
going off, a stifled laugh. 

However, amid a rain of impositions, order was gradu- 
ally re-established in, the class; and the master having 
succeeded in catching the name of “Charles Bovary,” 
having had it dictated to him, spelt out, and re-read, 
at once ordered the poor devil to go and sit down on the 
punishment form at the foot of the master’s desk. He 
got up, but before going hesitated. 

“What are you looking for?” asked the master. 

“My c-a-p,” timidly said the “new fellow,” casting 
troubled looks round him. 

[5] 


MADAME BOVARY 

“Five hundred verses for all the class !” shouted in 
a furious voice stopped, like the Quos ego , a fresh out- 
burst. “Silence!” continued the master indignantly, 
wiping his brow with his handkerchief, which he had 
just taken from his cap. “As to you, ‘new boy/ you 
will conjugate ‘ridiculus sum 9 twenty times.” Then, 
in a gentler tone, “Come, you’ll find your cap again; 
it hasn’t been stolen.” 

Quiet was restored. Heads bent over desks, and the 
“new fellow” remained for two hours in an exemplary 
attitude, although from time to time some paper pellet 
flipped from the tip of a pen came bang in his face. 
But he wiped his face with one hand and continued 
motionless, his eyes lowered. 

In the evening, at preparation, he pulled out his pens 
from his desk, arranged his small belongings, and care- 
fully ruled his paper. We saw him working conscien- 
tiously, looking up every word in the dictionary, and 
taking the greatest pains. Thanks, no doubt, to the 
willingness he showed, he had not to go down to the class 
below. But though he knew his rules passably, he 
had little finish in composition. It was the cure of his 
village who had taught him his first Latin; his parents, 
from motives of economy, having sent him to school 
as late as possible. 

His father, Monsieur Charles Denis Bartolome Bovary, 
retired assistant-surgeon-major, compromised about 1812 
in certain conscription scandals, and forced at this time 
to leave the service, had taken advantage of his fine 
figure to get hold of a dowry of sixty thousand francs 
that offered in the person of a hosier’s daughter who had 
fallen in love with his good looks. A fine man, a great 
[ 6 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


talker, making his spurs ring as he walked, wearing 
whiskers that ran into his moustache, his fingers always 
garnished with rings and dressed in loud colours, he had 
the dash of a military man with the easy go of a com- 
mercial traveller. Once married, he lived for three or 
four years on his wife’s fortune, dining well, rising late, 
smoking long porcelain pipes, not coming in at night 
till after the theatre, and haunting cafes. The father- 
in-law died, leaving little; he was indignant at this, 
“went in for the business,” lost some money in it, then 
retired to the country, where he thought he would make 
money. But, as he knew no more about farming than 
calico, as he rode his horses instead of sending them to 
plough, drank his cider in bottle instead of selling it in 
cask, ate the finest poultry in his farmyard, and greased 
his hunting-boots with the fat of his pigs, he was not 
long in finding out that he would do better to give up 
all speculation. 

For two hundred francs a year he managed to live on 
the border of the provinces of Caux and Picardy, in a 
kind of place half farm, half private house; and here, 
soured, eaten up with regrets, cursing his luck, jealous 
of everyone, he shut himself up at the age of forty-five, 
sick of men, he said, and determined to live in peace. 

His wife had adored him once on a time; she had 
bored him with a thousand servilities that had only 
estranged him the more. Lively once, expansive and 
affectionate, in growing older she had become (after 
the fashion of wine that, exposed to air, turns to vinegar) 
ill-tempered, grumbling, irritable. She had suffered so 
much without complaint at first, until she had seen 
him going after all the village drabs, and until a score 
[ 7 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


of bad houses sent him back to her at night, weary, 
stinking drunk. Then her pride revolted. After that 
she was silent, burying her anger in a dumb stoicism 
that she maintained till her death. She was constantly 
going about looking after business matters. She called 
on the lawyers, the president, remembered when bills 
fell due, got them renewed, and at home ironed, sewed, 
washed, looked after the workmen, paid the accounts, 
while he, troubling himself about nothing, eternally 
besotted in sleepy sulkiness, whence he only roused him- 
self to say disagreeable things to her, sat smoking by the 
fire and spitting into the cinders. 

When she had a child, it had to be sent out to nurse. 
When he came home, the lad was spoilt as if he were a 
prince. His mother stuffed him with jam; his father 
let him run about barefoot, and, playing the philosopher, 
even said he might as well go about quite naked like the 
young of animals. As opposed to the maternal ideas, he 
had a certain virile idea of childhood on which he sought 
to mould his son, wishing him to be brought up hardily, 
like a Spartan, to give him a strong constitution. He 
sent him to bed without any fire, taught him to drink 
off large draughts of rum and to jeer at religious pro- 
cessions. But, peaceable by nature, the lad answered 
only poorly to his notions. His mother always kept 
him near her ; she cut out cardboard for him, told 
him tales, entertained him with endless monologues full 
of melancholy gaiety and charming nonsense. In her 
life’s isolation she centered on the child’s head all her 
shattered, broken little vanities. She dreamed of high 
station; she already saw him, tall, handsome, clever, 
settled as an engineer or in the law. She taught him to 
[ 8 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


read, and even, on an old piano, she had taught him two 
or three little songs. But to all this Monsieur Bovary, 
caring little for letters, said, “It was not worth while. 
Would they ever have the means to send him to a public 
school, to buy him a practice, or start him in business? 
Besides, with cheek a man always gets on in the world.” 
Madame Bovary bit her lips, and the child knocked 
about the village. 

He went after the labourers, drove away with clods 
of earth the ravens that were flying about. He ate 
blackberries along the hedges, minded the geese with a 
long switch, went haymaking during harvest, ran about 
in the woods, played hop-scotch under the church porch 
on rainy days, and at great fetes begged the beadle to 
let him toll the bells, that he might hang all his weight on 
the long rope and feel himself borne upward by it in its 
swing. Meanwhile he grew like an oak; he was strong 
of hand, fresh of colour. 

When he was twelve years old his mother had her own 
way; he began his lessons. The cure took him in hand; 
but the lessons were so short and irregular that they 
could not be of much use. They were given at spare 
moments in the sacristy, standing up, hurriedly, between 
a baptism and a burial; or else the cure, if he had not 
to go out, sent for his pupil after the Angelus. They 
went up to his room and settled down; the flies and moths 
fluttered round the candle. It was close, the child fell 
asleep, and the good man, beginning to doze with his 
hands on his stomach, was soon snoring with his mouth 
wide open. On other occasions, when Monsieur Ie Cure, 
on his way back after administering the viaticum to 
some sick person in the neighbourhood, caught sight of 
[ 9 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Charles playing about the fields, he called him, lectured 
him for a quarter of an hour, and took advantage of the 
occasion to make him conjugate his verb at the foot of 
a tree. The rain interrupted them or an acquaintance 
passed. All the same he was always pleased with him, 
and even said the “young man” had a very good 
memory. 

Charles could not go on like this. Madame Bovary 
took strong steps. Ashamed, or rather tired out, Mon- 
sieur Bovary gave in without a struggle, and they waited 
one year longer, so that the lad should take his first 
communion. 

Six months more passed, and the year after Charles 
was finally sent to school at Rouen, whither his father 
took him towards the end of October, at the time of the 
St. Romain fair. 

It would now be impossible for any of us to remember 
anything about him. He was a youth of even temper- 
ament, who played in playtime, worked in school-hours, 
was attentive in class, slept well in the dormitory, and 
ate well in the refectory. He had in loco parentis a whole- 
sale ironmonger in the Rue Ganterie, who took him 
out once a month on Sundays after his shop was shut, 
sent him for a walk on the quay to look at the boats, 
and then brought him back to college at seven o’clock 
before supper. Every Thursday evening he wrote a 
long letter to his mother with red ink and three wafers; 
then he went over his history note-books, or read an old 
volume of “Anarchasis” that was knocking about the 
study. When he went for walks he talked to the servant, 
who, like himself, came from the country. 

By dint of hard work he kept always about the middle 

[ 10 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


of the class; once even he got a certificate in natural 
history. But at the end of his third year his parents 
withdrew him from the school to make him study medi- 
cine, convinced that he could even take his degree by 
himself. 

His mother chose a room for him on the fourth floor 
of a dyer’s she knew, overlooking the Eau-de-Robec. 
She made arrangements for his board, got him furniture, 
table and two chairs, sent home for an old cherry-tree 
bedstead, and bought besides a small cast-iron stove 
with the supply of wood that was to warm the poor child. 
Then at the end of a week she departed, after a thousand 
injunctions to be good now that he was going to be left 
to himself. 

The syllabus that he read on the notice-board stunned 
him: lectures on anatomy, lectures on pathology, lec- 
tures on physiology, lectures on pharmacy, lectures on 
botany and clinical medicine, and therapeutics, without 
counting hygiene and materia medica — all names of 
whose etymologies he was ignorant, and that were to 
him as so many doors to sanctuaries filled with magni- 
ficent darkness. 

He understood nothing of it all; it was all very well 
to listen — he did not follow. Still he worked; he had 
bound note-books, he attended all the courses, never 
missed a single lecture. He did his little daily task 
like a mill-horse, who goes round and round with his 
eyes bandaged, not knowing what work he is doing. 

To spare him expense his mother sent him every week 
by the carrier a piece of veal baked in the oven, with 
which he lunched when he came back from the hospital, 
while he sat kicking his feet against the wall. After 

[ii] 


MADAME BOVARY 


this he had to run off to lectures, to the operation-room, 
to the hospital, and return to his home at the other end 
of the town. In the evening, after the poor dinner of his 
landlord, he went back to his room and set to work again 
in his wet clothes, which smoked as he sat in front of 
the hot stove. 

On the fine summer evenings, at the time when the 
close streets are empty, when the servants are playing 
shuttle-cock at the doors, he opened his window and 
leaned out. The river, that makes of this quarter of 
Rouen a wretched little Venice, flowed beneath him, 
between the bridges and the railings, yellow, violet, or 
blue. Working men, kneeling on the banks, washed 
their bare arms in the water. On poles projecting from 
the attics, skeins of cotton were drying in the air. Op- 
posite, beyond the roofs, spread the pure heaven with the 
red sun setting. How pleasant it must be at home! 
How fresh under the beech-tree! And he expanded his 
nostrils to breathe in the sweet odours of the country 
which did not reach him. 

He grew thin, his figure became taller, his face took 
a saddened look that made it nearly interesting. Natur- 
ally, through indifference, he abandoned all the resolu- 
tions he had made. Once he missed a lecture; the next 
day all the lectures; and, enjoying his idleness, little 
by little, he gave up work altogether. He got into the 
habit of going to the public-house, and had a passion 
for dominoes. To shut himself up every evening in 
the dirty public room, to push about on marble tables 
the small sheep-bones with black dots, seemed to him 
a fine proof of his freedom, which raised him in his own 
esteem. It was beginning to see life, the sweetness of 
[ 12 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


stolen pleasures; and when he entered, he put his hand 
on the door-handle with a joy almost sensual. Then 
many things hidden within him came out; he learnt 
couplets by heart and sang them to his boon compan- 
ions, became enthusiastic about Beranger, learnt how to 
make punch, and, finally, how to make love. 

Thanks to these preparatory labours, he failed com- 
pletely in his examination for an ordinary degree. He 
was expected home the same night to celebrate his suc- 
cess. He started on foot, stopped at the beginning of 
the village, sent for his mother, and told her all. She 
excused him, threw the blame of his failure on the in- 
justice of the examiners, encouraged him a little, and 
took upon herself to set matters straight. It was only 
five years later that Monsieur Bovary knew the truth; 
it was old then, and he accepted it. Moreover, he could 
not believe that a man born of him could be a fool. 

So Charles set to work again and crammed for his 
examination, ceaselessly learning all the old questions 
by heart. He passed pretty well. What a happy day 
for his mother! They gave a grand dinner. 

Where should he go to practise? To Tostes, where 
there was only one old doctor. For a long time Madame 
Bovary had been on the look-out for his death, and the 
old fellow had barely been packed off when Charles was 
installed, opposite his place, as his successor. 

But it was not everything to have brought up a son, 
to have had him taught medicine, and discovered Tostes, 
where he could practise it; he must have a wife. She 
found him one — the widow of a bailiff at Dieppe, — who 
was forty-five and had an income of twelve hundred 
francs. Though she was ugly, as dry as a bone, her face 
[i3] 


MADAME BOVARY 


with as many pimples as the spring has buds, Madame 
Dubuc had no lack of suitors. To attain her ends 
Madame Bovary had to oust them all, and she even 
succeeded in very cleverly baffling the intrigues of a 
pork-butcher backed up by the priests. 

Charles had seen in marriage the advent of an easier 
life, thinking he would be more free to do as he liked 
with himself and his money. But his wife was master; 
he had to say this and not say that in company, to fast 
every Friday, dress as she liked, harass at her bidding 
those patients who did not pay. She opened his letters, 
watched his comings and goings, and listened at the 
partition-wall when women came to consult him in his 
surgery. 

She must have her chocolate every morning, attentions 
without end. She constantly complained of her nerves, 
her chest, her liver. The noise of footsteps made her 
ill; when people left her, solitude became odious to her; 
if they came back, it was doubtless to see her die. When 
Charles returned in the evening, she stretched forth 
two long thin arms from beneath the sheets, put them 
round his neck, and having made him sit down on the 
edge of the bed, began to talk to him of her troubles: 
he was neglecting her, he loved another. She had been 
warned she would be unhappy; and she ended by asking 
him for a dose of medicine and a little more love. 


[14] 


II 

/^VNE night towards eleven o’clock they were awakened 
by the noise of a horse pulling up outside their 
door. The servant opened the garret-window and par- 
leyed for some time with a man in the street below. He 
came for the doctor, had a letter for him. Natasie 
came downstairs shivering and undid the bars and bolts 
one after the other. The man left his horse, and, follow- 
ing the servant, suddenly came in behind her. He 
pulled out from his wool cap with grey top-knots a letter 
wrapped up in a rag, and presented it gingerly to Charles, 
who rested on his elbow on the pillow to read it. Natasie, 
standing near the bed, held the light. Madame in modesty 
had turned to the wall and showed only her back. 

This letter, sealed with a small seal in blue wax, begged 
Monsieur Bovary to come immediately to the farm of 
the Bertaux to set a broken leg. Now from Tostes to 
the Bertaux was a good eighteen miles across country 
by way of Longueville and Saint-Victor. It was a dark 
night; Madame Bovary junior was afraid of accidents 
for her husband. So it was decided the stable-boy 
should go on first; Charles would start three hours 
later when the moon rose. A boy was to be sent to meet 
him, and show him the way to the farm, and open the 
gates for him. 

Towards four o’clock in the morning, Charles, well 
wrapped up in his cloak, set out for the Bertaux. Still 
[i5] 


MADAME BOVARY 


sleepy from the warmth of his bed, he let himself be 
lulled by the quiet trot of his horse. When it stopped 
of its own accord in front of those holes surrounded with 
thorns that are dug on the margin of furrows, Charles 
awoke with a start, suddenly remembered the broken 
leg, and tried to call to mind all the fractures he knew. 
The rain had stopped, day was breaking, and on the 
branches of the leafless trees birds roosted motionless, 
their little feathers bristling in the cold morning wind. 
The flat country stretched as far as eye could see, and 
the tufts of trees round the farms at long intervals seemed 
like dark violet stains on the vast grey surface, that on 
the horizon faded into the gloom of the sky. Charles 
from time to time opened his eyes, his mind grew weary, 
and, sleep coming upon him, he soon fell into a doze 
wherein, his recent sensations blending with memories, 
he became conscious of a double self, at once student and 
married man, lying in his bed as but now, and crossing 
the operation theatre as of old. The warm smell of 
poultices mingled in his brain with the fresh odour of 
dew; he heard the iron rings rattling along the curtain- 
rods of the bed and saw his wife sleeping. As he passed 
Vassonville he came upon a boy sitting on the grass at 
the edge of a ditch. 

“Are you the doctor?” asked the child. 

And on Charles’s answer he took his wooden shoes 
in his hands and ran on in front of him. 

The general practicioner, riding along, gathered from 
his guide’s talk that Monsieur Rouault must be one of 
the well-to-do farmers. He had broken his leg the 
evening before on his way home from a Twelfth-night 
feast at a neighbour’s. His wife had been dead for two 
[16] 


MADAME BOVARY 


years. There was with him only his daughter, who helped 
him to keep house. 

The ruts were becoming deeper; they were approach- 
ing the Bertaux. The little lad, slipping through a 
hole in the hedge, disappeared; then he came back to 
the end of a courtyard to open the gate. The horse 
slipped on the wet grass; Charles had to stoop to pass 
under the branches. The watchdogs in their kennels 
barked, dragging at their chains. As he entered the 
Bertaux the horse took fright and stumbled. 

It was a substantial-looking farm. In the stables, 
over the top of the open doors, one could see great cart- 
horses quietly feeding from new racks. Right along 
the outbuildings extended a large dunghill, from which 
manure liquid oozed, while amidst fowls and turkeys 
five or six peacocks, a luxury in Chauchois farmyards, 
were foraging on the top of it. The sheepfold was long, 
the barn high, with walls smooth as your hand. Under 
the cartshed were two large carts and four ploughs, 
with their whips, shafts and harnesses complete, whose 
fleeces of blue wool were getting soiled by the fine dust 
that fell from the granaries. The courtyard sloped 
upwards, planted with trees set out symmetrically, 
and the chattering noise of a flock of geese was heard 
near the pond. 

A young woman in a blue merino dress with three 
flounces came to the threshold of the door to receive 
Monsieur Bovary, whom she led to the kitchen, where 
a large fire was blazing. The servant’s breakfast was 
boiling beside it in small pots of all sizes. Some damp 
clothes were drying inside the chimney-corner. The 
shovel, tongs, and the nozzle of the bellows, all of colossal 
[ 17 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


size, shone like polished steel, while along the walls 
hung many pots and pans in which the clear flame of the 
hearth, mingling with the first rays of the sun coming in 
through the window, was mirrored fitfully. 

Charles went up to the first floor to see the patient. 
He found him in his bed, sweating under his bed-clothes, 
having thrown his cotton nightcap right away from him. 
He was a fat little man of fifty, with white skin and blue 
eyes, the forepart of his head bald, and he wore ear- 
rings. By his side on a chair stood a large decanter 
of brandy, whence he poured himself out a little from 
time to time to keep up his spirits; but as soon as he 
caught sight of the doctor his elation subsided, and 
instead of swearing, as he had been doing for the last 
twelve hours, began to groan feebly. 

The fracture was a simple one, without any kind of 
complication. Charles could not have hoped for an 
easier case. Then calling to mind the devices of his 
masters at the bedsides of patients, he comforted the 
sufferer with all sorts of kindly remarks, those caresses 
of the surgeon that are like the oil they put on bistouries. 
In order to make some splints a bundle of laths was 
brought up from the carthouse. Charles selected one, 
cut it into two pieces and planed it with a fragment of 
windowpane, while the servant tore up sheets to make 
bandages, and Mademoiselle Emma tried to sew some 
pads. As she was a long time before she found her work- 
case, her father grew impatient; she did not answer, 
but as she sewed she pricked her fingers, which she then 
put to her mouth to suck them. Charles was surprised 
at the whiteness of her nails. They were shiny, delicate 
at the tips, more polished than the ivory of Dieppe, 

[18] 


MADAME BOVARY 


and almond-shaped. Yet her hand was not beautiful, 
perhaps not white enough, and a little hard at the 
knuckles; besides, it was too long, with no soft inflec- 
tions in the outlines. Her real beauty was in her eyes. 
Although brown, they seemed black because of the 
lashes, and her look came at you frankly, with a candid 
boldness. 

The bandaging over, the doctor was invited by Mon- 
sieur Rouault himself to “pick a bit” before he left. 

Charles went down into the room on the ground- 
floor. Knives and forks and silver goblets were laid 
for two on a little table at the foot of a huge bed that had 
a canopy of printed cotton w T ith figures representing 
Turks. There was an odour of iris-root and damp 
sheets that escaped from a large oak chest opposite the 
window. On the floor in corners were sacks of flour 
stuck upright in rows. These were the overflow from 
the neighbouring granary, to which three stone steps 
led. By way of decoration for the apartment, hanging 
to a nail in the middle of the wall, whose green paint 
scaled off from the effects of the saltpetre, was a crayon 
head of Minerva in a gold frame, underneath which was 
written in Gothic letters “To dear Papa.” 

First they spoke of the patient, then of the weather, 
of the great cold, of the wolves that infested the fields 
at night. Mademoiselle Rouault did not at all like the 
country, especially now that she had to look after the 
farm almost alone. As the room was chilly, she shivered 
as she ate. This showed something of her full lips, 
that she had a habit of biting when silent. 

Her neck stood out from a white turned-down collar. 
Her hair, whose two black folds seemed each of a single 
[ 19 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


piece, so smooth were they, was parted in the middle 
by a delicate line that curved slightly with the curve 
of the head; and, just showing the tip of the ear, it was 
joined behind in a thick chignon , with a wavy movement 
at the temples that the country doctor saw now for the 
first time in his life. The upper part of her cheek was 
rose-coloured. She had, like a man, thrust in between 
two buttons of her bodice a tortoise-shell eyeglass. 

When Charles, after bidding farewell to old Rouault, 
returned to the room before leaving, he found her stand- 
ing, her forehead against the window, looking into the 
garden, where the bean props had been knocked down by 
the wind. She turned round. “Are you looking for 
anything?” she asked. 

“My whip, if you please,” he answered. 

He began rummaging on the bed, behind the doors, 
under the chairs. It had fallen to the floor, between 
the sacks and the wall. Mademoiselle Emma saw it, 
and bent over the flour sacks. Charles out of politeness 
made a dash also, and as he stretched out his arm, at 
the same moment felt his breast brush against the back 
of the young girl bending beneath him. She drew 
herself up, scarlet, and looked at him over her shoulder 
as she handed him his whip. 

Instead of returning to the Bertaux in three days as 
he had promised, he went back the very next day, then 
regularly twice a week, without counting the visits he 
paid now and then as if by accident. 

Everything, moreover, went well; the patient pro- 
gressed favourably; and when, at the end of forty-six 
days, old Rouault was seen trying to walk alone in his 
“den,” Monsieur Bovary began to be looked upon as 
[ 20 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


a man of great capacity. Old Rouault said that he could 
not have been cured better by the first doctor of Yvetot, 
or even of Rouen. 

As to Charles, he did not stop to ask himself why it 
was a pleasure to him to go to the Bertaux. Had he 
done so, he would, no doubt, have attributed his zeal 
to the importance of the case, or perhaps to the money 
he hoped to make by it. Was it for this, however, that 
his visits to the farm formed a delightful exception 
to the meagre occupations of his life? On these days 
he rose early, set off at a gallop, urging on his horse, 
then got down to wipe his boots in the grass and put on 
black gloves before entering. He liked going into the 
courtyard, and noticing the gate turn against his shoul- 
der, the cock crow on the wall, the lads run to meet 
him. He liked the granary and the stables; he liked 
old Rouault, who pressed his hand and called him his 
saviour; he liked the small wooden shoes of Mademoiselle 
Emma on the scoured flags of the kitchen — her high 
heels made her a little taller; and when she walked in 
front of him, the wooden soles springing up quickly 
struck with a sharp sound against the leather of her 
boots. 

She always accompanied him to the first step of the 
stairs. When his horse had not yet been brought round 
she stayed there. They had said “Good-bye”; there 
was no more talking. The open air wrapped her round, 
playing with the soft down on the back of her neck, 
or blew to and fro on her hips her apron-strings, that 
fluttered like streamers. Once, during a thaw, the 
bark of the trees in the yard was oozing, the snow on 
the roofs of the out-buildings was melting; she stood on 
[ 21 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


the threshold, and went to fetch her sunshade and opened 
it. The sunshade, of silk of the colour of pigeons’ breasts, 
through which the sun shone, lighted up with shifting 
hues the white skin of her face. She smiled under the 
tender warmth, and drops of water could be heard falling 
one by one on the stretched silk. 

During the first period of Charles’s visits to the Ber- 
taux, Madame Bovary, junior, never failed to inquire 
after the invalid, and she had even chosen in the book 
that she kept on a system of double entry a clean blank 
page for Monsieur Rouault. But when she heard he 
had a daughter, she began to make inquiries, and she 
learnt the Mademoiselle Rouault, brought up at the 
Ursuline Convent, had received what is called “a good 
education”; and so knew dancing, geography, drawing, 
how to embroider and play the piano. That was the 
last straw. 

“So it is for this,” she said to herself, “that his face 
beams when he goes to see her, and that he puts on 
his new waistcoat at the risk of spoiling it with the rain. 
Ah! that woman! that woman!” 

And she detested her instinctively. At first she solaced 
herself by allusions that Charles did not understand, 
then by casual observations that he let pass for fear of 
a storm, finally by open apostrophes to which he knew 
not what to answer. “Why did he go back to the Ber- 
taux now that Monsieur Rouault was cured and that 
these folks hadn’t paid yet? Ah! it was because a young 
lady was there, some one who knew how to talk, to 
embroider, to be witty. That was what he cared 
about; he wanted town misses.” And she went on: — 

“The daughter of old Rouault a town miss! Get 

[ 22 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


out! Their grandfather was a shepherd, and they have a 
cousin who was almost had up at the assizes for a nasty 
blow in a quarrel. It is not worth while making such 
a fuss, or showing herself at church on Sundays in a 
silk gown like a countess. Besides, the poor old chap, 
if it hadn’t been for the colza last year, would have had 
much ado to pay up his arrears.” 

For very weariness Charles left off going to the Ber- 
taux. Heloi'se made him swear, his hand on the prayer- 
book, that he would go there no more, after much 
sobbing and many kisses, in a great outburst of love. 
He obeyed then, but the strength of his desire protested 
against the servility of his conduct; and he thought, 
with a kind of naive hypocrisy, that this interdict to 
see her gave him a sort of right to love her. And then 
the widow was thin; she had long teeth; wore in all 
weathers a little black shawl, the edge of which hung 
down between her shoulder-blades; her bony figure 
was sheathed in her clothes as if they were a scabbard; 
they were too short, and displayed her ankles with the 
laces of her large boots crossed over grey stockings. 

Charles’s mother came to see them from time to time, 
but after a few days the daughter-in-law seemed to put 
her own edge on her, and then, like two knives, they 
scarified him with their reflections and observations. 
It was wrong of him to eat so much. Why did he always 
offer a glass of something to everyone who came? What 
obstinacy not to wear flannels! 

In the spring it came about that a notary at Ingouville, 
the holder of the widow Dubuc’s property, one fine day 
went off, taking with him all the money in his office. 
Heloi'se, it is true, still possessed, besides a share in a 

[23] 


MADAME BOVARY 


boat valued at six thousand francs, her house in the Rue 
St. Francois; and yet, with all this fortune that had been 
so trumpeted abroad, nothing, excepting perhaps a 
little furniture and a few clothes, had appeared in the 
household. The matter had to be gone into. The 
house at Dieppe was found to be eaten up with mort- 
gages to its foundations; what she had placed with the 
notary God only knew, and her share in the boat did not 
exceed one thousand crowns. She had lied, the good 
lady! In his exasperation, Monsieur Bovary the elder, 
smashing a chair on the flags, accused his wife of having 
caused misfortune to their son by harnessing him to 
such a harridan, whose harness wasn’t worth her hide. 
They came to Tostes. Explanations followed. There 
were scenes. Heloise in tears, throwing her arms about 
her husband, implored him to defend her from his parents. 
Charles tried to speak up for her. They grew angry 
and left the house. 

But “the blow had struck home.” A week after, 
as she was hanging up some washing in her yard, she was 
seized with a spitting of blood, and the next day, while 
Charles had his back turned to her drawing the window- 
curtain, she said, “0 God!” gave a sigh and fainted. 
She was dead! What a surprise! 

When all was over at the cemetery Charles went 
home. He found no one downstairs; he went up to the 
first floor to their room; saw her dress still hanging 
at the foot of the alcove; then, leaning against the 
writing-table, he stayed until the evening, buried in 
a sorrowful reverie. She had loved him after all! 


[ 24 ] 


Ill 


/^NE morning old Rouault brought Charles the money 
for setting his leg — seventy-five francs in forty- 
sou pieces, and a turkey. He had heard of his loss, 
and consoled him as well as he could. 

“I know what it is,” said he, clapping him on the 
shoulder; “Eve been through it. When I lost my dear 
departed, I went into the fields to be quite alone. I 
fell at the foot of a tree; I cried; I called on God; I 
talked nonsense to Him. I wanted to be like the moles 
that I saw on the branches, their insides swarming 
with worms, dead, and an end of it. And when I thought 
that there were others at that very moment with their 
nice little wives holding them in their embrace, I struck 
great blows on the earth with my stick. I was pretty 
well mad with not eating; the very idea of going to a 
cafe disgusted me — you wouldn’t believe it. Well, 
quite softly, one day following another, a spring on a 
winter, and an autumn after a summer, this wore away, 
piece by piece, crumb by crumb; it passed away, it is 
gone, I should say it has sunk; for something always 
remains at the bottom, as one would say — a weight 
here, at one’s heart. But since it is the lot of all of us, 
one must not give way altogether, and, because others 
have died, want to die too. You must pull yourself 
together, Monsieur Bovary. It will pass away. Come 

C25] 


MADAME BOVARY 


to see us; my daughter thinks of you now and again, 
d’ye know, and she says you are forgetting her. Spring 
will soon be here. We’II have some rabbit-shooting in 
the warrens to amuse you a bit.” 

Charles followed his advice. He went back to the 
Bertaux. He found all as he had left it, that is to say, 
as it was five months ago. The pear trees were already 
in blossom, and Farmer Rouault, on his legs again, came 
and went, making the farm more full of life. 

Thinking it his duty to heap the greatest attention 
upon the doctor because of his sad position, he begged 
him not to take his hat off, spoke to him in an undertone 
as if he had been ill, and even pretended to be angry 
because nothing rather lighter had been prepared for 
him than for the others, such as a little clotted cream or 
stewed pears. He told stories. Charles found himself 
laughing, but the remembrance of his wife suddenly 
coming back to him depressed him. Coffee was brought 
in; he thought no more about her. 

He thought less of her as he grew accustomed to 
living alone. The new delight of independence soon 
made his loneliness bearable. He could now change 
his meal-times, go in or out without explanation, and 
when he was very tired stretch himself at full length 
on his bed. So he nursed and coddled himself and 
accepted the consolations that were offered him. On 
the other hand, the death of his wife had not served him 
ill in his business, since for a month people had been 
saying, “The poor young man! what a loss!” His 
name had been talked about, his practice had increased; 
and, moreover, he could go to the Bertaux just as he 
liked. He had an aimless hope, and was vaguely happy; 
[26] 


MADAME BOVARY 


he thought himself better looking as he brushed his 
whiskers before the looking-glass. 

One day he got there about three o’clock. Everybody 
was in the fields. He went into the kitchen, but did not 
at once catch sight of Emma; the outside shutters were 
closed. Through the chinks of the wood the sun sent 
across the flooring long fine rays that were broken at the 
corners of the furniture and trembled along the ceiling. 
Some flies on the table were crawling up the glasses that 
had been used, and buzzing as they drowned themselves 
in the dregs of the cider. The daylight that came in 
by the chimney made velvet of the soot at the back of the 
fireplace, and touched with blue the cold cinders. Be- 
tween the window and the hearth Emma was sewing; 
she wore no fichu; he could see small drops of perspi- 
ration on her bare shoulders. 

After the fashion of country folks she asked him to 
have something to drink. He said no; she insisted, 
and at last laughingly offered to have a glass of liqueur 
with him. So she went to fetch a bottle of curagoa 
from the cupboard, reached down two small glasses, 
filled one to the brim, poured scarcely anything into the 
other, and, after having clinked glasses, carried hers to 
her mouth. As it was almost empty she bent back to 
drink, her head thrown back, her lips pouting, her neck 
on the strain. She laughed at getting none of it, while 
with the tip of her tongue passing between her small 
teeth she licked drop by drop the bottom of her glass. 

She sat down again and took up her work, a white 
cotton stocking she was darning. She worked with her 
head bent down; she did not speak, nor did Charles. 
The air coming in under the door blew a little dust over 
[ 27 ] , 


MADAME BOVARY 


the flags; he watched it drift along, and heard nothing but 
the throbbing in his head and the faint clucking of a hen 
that had laid an egg in the yard. Emma from time to 
time cooled her cheeks with the palms of her hands, and 
cooled these again on the knobs of the huge fire-dogs. 

She complained of suffering since the beginning of the 
season from giddiness; she asked if sea-baths would do 
her any good; she began talking of her convent, Charles 
of his school; words came to them. They went up into 
her bed-room. She showed him her old music-books, 
the little prizes she had won, and the oak-leaf crowns, 
left at the bottom of a cupboard. She spoke to him, 
too, of her mother, of the country, and even showed 
him the bed in the garden where, on the first Friday 
of every month, she gathered flowers to put on her 
mother’s tomb. But the gardener they had never knew 
anything about it; servants are so stupid! She would 
have dearly liked, if only for the winter, to live in town, 
although the length of the fine days made the country 
perhaps even more wearisome in the summer. And, 
according to what she was saying, her voice was clear, 
sharp, or, on a sudden all languor, drawn out in modu- 
lations that ended almost in murmurs as she spoke to 
herself, now joyous, opening big naive eyes, then with her 
eyelids half closed, her look full of boredom, her thoughts 
wandering. 

Going home at night, Charles went over her words 
one by one, trying to recall them, to fill out their sense, 
that he might piece out the life she had lived before he 
knew her. But he never saw her in his thoughts other 
than he had seen her the first time, or as he had just left 
her. Then he asked himself what would become of her 
[28] 


MADAME BOVARY 


— if she would be married, and to whom? Alas ! old 
Rouault was rich, and she! — so beautiful! But Emma’s 
face always rose before his eyes, and a monotone, like 
the humming of a top, sounded in his ears, “ If you should 
marry after all! if you should marry!” At night he 
could not sleep; his throat was parched; he was athirst. 
He got up to drink from the water-bottle and opened 
the window. The night was covered with stars, a warm 
wind blowing in the distance; the dogs were barking. 
He turned his head towards the Bertaux. 

Thinking that, after all, he should lose nothing, Charles 
promised himself to ask her in marriage as soon as occa- 
sion offered, but each time such occasion did offer the 
fear of not finding the right words sealed his lips. 

Old Rouault would not have been sorry to be rid of his 
daughter, who was of no use to him in the house. In 
his heart he excused her, thinking her too clever for 
farming, a calling under the ban of Heaven, since one 
never saw a millionaire in it. Far from having made 
a fortune by it, the good man was losing every year; for 
if he was good in bargaining, in which he enjoyed the 
dodges of the trade, on the other hand, agriculture 
properly so called, and the internal management of the 
farm, suited him less than most people. He did not 
willingly take his hands out of his pockets, and did not 
spare expense in all that concerned himself, liking to eat 
well, to have good fires, and to sleep well. He liked old 
cider, underdone legs of mutton, glorias 1 well beaten 
up. He took his meals in the kitchen alone, opposite 
the fire, on a little table brought to him all ready laid 
as on the stage. 

1 A mixture of coffee and spirits. — T ranslator. 

C 29 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


When, therefore, he perceived that Charles’s cheeks 
grew red if near his daughter, which meant that he would 
propose for her one of these days, he chewed the cud 
of the matter beforehand. He certainly thought him 
a little meagre, and not quite the son-in-law he would 
have liked, but he was said to be well brought-up, eco- 
nomical, very learned, and no doubt would not make too 
many difficulties about the dowry. Now, as old Rouault 
would soon be forced to sell twenty-two acres of “his 
property,” as he owed a good deal to the mason, to the 
harnessmaker, and as the shaft of the cider-press wanted 
renewing, “If he asks for her,” he said to himself, “ I’ll 
give her to him.” 

At Michaelmas Charles went to spend three days at 
the Bertaux. The last had passed like the others in 
procrastinating from hour to hour. Old Rouault was 
seeing him off; they were walking along the road full 
of ruts; they were about to part. This was the time. 
Charles gave himself as far as to the corner of the hedge, 
and at last, when past it — 

“Monsieur Rouault,” he murmured, “I should like to 
say something to you.” 

They stopped. Charles was silent. 

“Well, tell me your story. Don't I know all about it?” 
said old Rouault, laughing softly. 

“Monsieur Rouault — Monsieur Rouault,” stam- 
mered Charles. 

“I ask nothing better,” the farmer went on. “Al- 
though, no doubt, the little one is of my mind, still we 
must ask her opinion. So you get off — I’ll go back 
home. If it is ‘yes,’ you needn’t return because of all the 
people about, and besides it would upset her too much. 

[ 30 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


But so that you mayn’t be eating your heart, I’ll open 
wide the outer shutter of the window against the wall; 
you can see it from the back by leaning over the hedge.” 

And he went off. 

Charles fastened his horse to a tree; he ran into the 
road and waited. Half-an-hour passed, then he counted 
nineteen minutes by his watch. Suddenly a noise was 
heard against the wall; the shutter had been thrown 
back; the hook was still swinging. 

The next day by nine o’clock he was at the farm. 
Emma blushed as he entered, and she gave a little forced 
laugh to keep herself in countenance. Old Rouault 
embraced his future son-in-law. The discussion of 
money matters was put off; moreover, there was plenty 
of time before them, as the marriage could not decently 
take place till Charles was out of mourning, that is to 
say, about the spring of the next year. 

The winter passed waiting for this. Mademoiselle 
Rouault was busy with her trousseau. Part of it was 
ordered at Rouen, and she made herself chemises and 
nightcaps after fashion-plates that she borrowed. When 
Charles visited the farmer, the preparations for the wed- 
ding were talked over; they wondered in what room 
they should have dinner; they dreamed of the number 
of dishes that would be wanted, and what should be 
the entrees. 

Emma would, on the contrary, have preferred to have 
a midnight wedding with torches, but old Rouault could 
not understand such an idea. So there was a wedding at 
which forty-three persons were present, at which they re- 
mained sixteen hours at table, began again the next day, 
and to some extent on the days following. 

[3i] 


IV 



‘HE guests arrived early in carriages, in one-horse 


1 chaises, two-wheeled cars, old open gigs, waggon- 
ettes with leather hoods, and the young people from the 
nearer villages in carts, in which they stood up in rows, 
holding on to the sides so as not to fall, going at a trot 
and well shaken up. Some came from a distance of 
thirty miles, from Goderville, from Normanville, and 
from Cany. All the relatives of both families had been 
invited, quarrels between friends arranged, acquaintances 
long since lost sight of written to. 

— From time to time one heard the crack of a whip 
behind the hedge; then the gates opened, a chaise en- 
tered. Galloping up to the foot of the steps, it stopped 
short and emptied its load. They got down from all 
sides, rubbing knees and stretching arms. The ladies, 
wearing bonnets, had on dresses in the town fashion, 
gold watch chains, pelerines with the ends tucked into 
belts, or little coloured fichus fastened down behind with 
a pin, and that left the back of the neck bare. The 
lads, dressed like their papas, seemed uncomfortable 
in their new clothes (many that day handselled their 
first pair of boots), and by their sides, speaking never 
a word, wearing the white dress of their first communion 
lengthened for the occasion, were some big girls of four- 
teen or sixteen, cousins or elder sisters no doubt, rubi- 
cund, bewildered, their hair greasy with rose-pomade, 


[32] 


MADAME BOVARY 


and very much afraid of dirtying their gloves. As there 
were not enough stable-boys to unharness all the car- 
riages, the gentlemen turned up their sleeves and set 
about it themselves. According to their different so- 
cial positions they wore tail-coats, overcoats, shooting- 
jackets, cutaway-coats: fine tail-coats, redolent of family 
respectability, that only came out of the wardrobe on 
state occasions; overcoats with long tails flapping in the 
wind and round capes and pockets like sacks; shooting- 
jackets of coarse cloth, generally worn with a cap with 
a brass-bound peak; very short cutaway-coats with two 
small buttons in the back, close together like a pair of 
eyes, and the tails of which seemed cut out of one piece 
by a carpenter’s hatchet. Some, too (but these, you 
may be sure, would sit at the bottom of the table), 
wore their best blouses — that is to say, with collars 
turned down to the shoulders, the back gathered into 
small plaits and the waist fastened very low down with 
a worked belt. 

And the shirts stood out from the chests like cuirasses! 
Everyone had just had his hair cut; ears stood out 
from the heads; they had been close-shaved; a few, 
even, who had had to get up before daybreak, and not 
been able to see to shave, had diagonal gashes under their 
noses or cuts the size of a three-franc piece along the 
jaws, which the fresh air en route had enflamed, so that 
the great white beaming faces were mottled here and 
there with red dabs. 

The mairie was a mile and a half from the farm, 
and they went thither on foot, returning in the same 
way after the ceremony in the church. The procession, 
first united like one long coloured scarf that undulated 
[ 33 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


across the fields, along the narrow path winding amid 
the green corn, soon lengthened out, and broke up into 
different groups that loitered to talk. The fiddler 
walked in front with his violin, gay with ribbons at its 
pegs. Then came the married pair, the relations, the 
friends, all following pell-mell; the children stayed 
behind amusing themselves plucking the bell-flowers 
from oat-ears, or playing amongst themselves unseen. 
Emma’s dress, too long, trailed a little on the ground; 
from time to time she stopped to pull it up, and then 
delicately, with her gloved hands, she picked off the 
coarse grass and the thistledowns, while Charles, empty 
handed, waited till she had finished. Old Rouault, 
with a new silk hat and the cuffs of his black coat cover- 
ing his hands up to the nails, gave his arm to Madame 
Bovary senior. As to Monsieur Bovary senior, who, 
heartily despising all these folk, had come simply in 
a frock-coat of military cut with one row of buttons — 
he was passing compliments of the bar to a fair young 
peasant. She bowed, blushed, and did not know what 
to say. The other wedding guests talked of their busi- 
ness or played tricks behind each other’s backs, egging 
one another on in advance to be jolly. Those who 
listened could always catch the squeaking of the fiddler, 
who went on playing across the fields. When he saw 
that the rest were far behind he stopped to take breath, 
slowly rosined his bow, so that the strings should sound 
more shrilly, then set off again, by turns lowering and 
raising his neck, the better to mark time for himself. 
The noise of the instrument drove away the little birds 
from afar. 

The table was laid under the cart-shed. On it were 

[ 34 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


four sirloins, six chicken fricassees, stewed veal, three 
legs of mutton, and in the middle a fine roast sucking- 
pig, flanked by four chitterlings with sorrel. At the 
corners were decanters of brandy. Sweet bottled-cider 
frothed round the corks, and all the glasses had been 
filled to the brim with wine beforehand. Large dishes 
of yellow cream, that trembled with the least shake 
of the table, had designed on their smooth surface the 
initials of the newly wedded pair in nonpareil arabesques. 
A confectioner of Yvetot had been intrusted with the 
tarts and sweets. As he had only just set up in the 
place, he had taken a lot of trouble, and at dessert he 
himself brought in a set dish that evoked loud cries of 
wonderment. To begin with, at its base there was a 
square of blue cardboard, representing a temple with 
porticoes, colonnades, and stucco statuettes all round, 
and in the niches constellations of gilt paper stars; then 
on the second stage was a dungeon of Savoy cake, sur- 
rounded by many fortifications in candied angelica, 
almonds, raisins, and quarters of oranges; and finally, 
on the upper platform a green field with rocks set in 
lakes of jam, nutshell boats, and a small Cupid balancing 
himself in a chocolate swing whose two uprights ended 
in real roses for balls at the top. 

Until night they ate. When any of them were too tired 
of sitting, they went out for a stroll in the yard, or for 
a game with corks in the granary, and then returned to 
table. Some towards the finish went to sleep and snored. 
But with the coffee everyone woke up. Then they be- 
gan songs, showed off tricks, raised heavy weights, per- 
formed feats with their fingers, then tried lifting carts 
on their shoulders, make broad jokes, kissed the women. 
C 35 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


At night when they left, the horses, stuffed up to the 
nostrils with oats, could hardly be got into the shafts; 
they kicked, reared, the harness broke, their masters 
laughed or swore; and all night in the light of the moon 
along country roads there were runaway carts at full 
gallop plunging into the ditches, jumping over yard 
after yard of stones, clambering up the hills, with women 
leaning out from the tilt to catch hold of the reins. 

Those who stayed at the Bertaux spent the night 
drinking in the kitchen. The children had fallen asleep 
under the seats. 

The bride had begged her father to be spared the 
usual marriage pleasantries. However, a fishmonger, 
one of their cousins (who had even brought a pair of 
soles for his wedding present), began to squirt water 
from his mouth through the keyhole, when old Rouault 
came up just in time to stop him, and explain to him that 
the distinguished position of his son-in-law would not 
allow of such liberties. The cousin all the same did not 
give in to these reasons readily In his heart he accused 
old Rouault of being proud, and he joined four or five 
other guests in a corner, who having, through mere 
chance, been several times running served with the 
worst helps of meat, also were of opinion they had been 
badly used, and were whispering about their host, and 
with covered hints hoping he would ruin himself. 

Madame Bovary, senior, had not opened her mouth 
all day. She had been consulted neither as to the dress 
of her daughter-in-law nor as to the arrangement of the 
feast; fshe went to bed early. Her husband, instead of 
following her, sent to Saint-Victor for some cigars, and 
smoked till daybreak, drinking kirsch-punch, a mixture 

[36] 


MADAME BOVARY 

unknown to the company. This added greatly to the 
consideration in which he was held. 

Charles, who was not of a facetious turn, did not 
shine at the wedding. He answered feebly to the puns, 
doubles entendres , compliments, and chaff that it was 
felt a duty to let off at him as soon as the soup appeared. 

The next day, on the other hand, he seemed another 
man. It was he who might rather have been taken for 
the virgin of the evening before, whilst the bride gave no 
sign that revealed anything. The shrewdest did not 
know what to make of it, and they looked at her when 
she passed near them with an unbounded concentration 
of mind. But Charles concealed nothing. He called 
her “my wife,” tutoyed her, asked for her of everyone, 
looked for her everywhere, and often he dragged her 
into the yards, where he could be seen from far between 
the trees, putting his arm round her waist, and walking 
half-bending over her, ruffling the chemisette of her 
bodice with his head. 

Two days after the wedding the married pair left. 
Charles, on account of his patients, could not be away 
longer. Old Rouault had them driven back in his cart, 
and himself accompanied them as far as Vassonville. 
Here he embraced his daughter for the last time, got 
down, and went his way. When he had gone about a 
hundred paces he stopped, and as he saw the cart dis- 
appearing, its wheels turning in the dust, he gave a 
deep sigh. Then he remembered his wedding, the old 
times, the first pregnancy of his wife; he, too, had been 
very happy the day when he had taken her from her 
father to his home, and had carried her off on a pillion, 
trotting through the snow, for it was near Christmas- 

[37] 


MADAME BOVARY 


time, and the country was all white. She held him 
by one arm, her basket hanging from the other; the 
wind blew the long lace of her Cauchois head-dress 
so that it sometimes flapped across his mouth, and when 
he turned his head he saw near him, on his shoulder, her 
little rosy face, smiling silently under the gold bands 
of her cap. To warm her hands she put them from time 
to time in his breast. How long ago it all was! Their 
son would have been thirty by now. Then he looked 
back and saw nothing on the road. He felt dreary as 
an empty house; and tender memories mingling with 
the sad thoughts in his brain, addled by the fumes of 
the feast, he felt inclined for a moment to take a turn 
towards the church. As he was afraid, however, that this 
sight would make him yet more sad, he went right away 
home. 

Monsieur and Madame Charles arrived at Tostes 
about six o’clock. The neighbours came to the windows 
to see their doctor’s new wife. 

The old servant presented herself, curtsied to her, 
apologised for not having dinner ready, and suggested 
that madame, in the meantime, should look over her 
house. 


[38] 


V 


T^HE brick front was just in a line with the street, 
* or rather the road. Behind the door hung a cloak 
with a small collar, a bridle, and a black leather cap, 
and on the floor, in a corner, were a pair of leggings, still 
covered with dry mud. On the right was the one apart- 
ment, that was both dining and sitting room. A canary- 
yellow paper, relieved at the top by a garland of pale 
flowers, was puckered everywhere over the badly- 
stretched canvas; white calico curtains with a red border 
hung crossways the length of the window; and on the 
narrow mantelpiece a clock with a head of Hippocrates 
shone resplendent between two plate candlesticks under 
oval shades. On the other side of the passage was 
Charles’ consulting-room, a little room about six paces 
wide, with a table, three chairs, and an office-chair. 
Volumes of the “Dictionary of Medical Science,” uncut, 
but the binding rather the worse for the successive sales 
through which they had gone, occupied almost alone 
the six shelves of a deal bookcase. The smell of melted 
butter penetrated through the walls when he saw patients, 
just as in the kitchen one could hear the people cough- 
ing in the consulting-room and recounting their whole 
histories. Then, opening on the yard, where the stable 
was, came a large dilapidated room with a stove, now 
used as a wood-house, cellar, and pantry, full of old 
[ 39 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


rubbish, of empty casks, agricultural implements past 
service, and a mass of dusty things whose use it was 
impossible to guess. 

The garden, longer than wide, ran between two mud 
walls with espaliered apricots, to a hawthorn hedge that 
separated it from the field. In the middle was a slate 
sundial on a brick pedestal; four flower-beds with 
eglantines surrounded symmetrically the more use- 
ful kitchen-garden bed. Right at the bottom, under 
the spruce bushes, was a cure in plaster reading his 
breviary. 

Emma went upstairs. The first room was not fur- 
nished, but in the second, which was their bedroom, 
was a mahogany bedstead in an alcove with red drapery. 
A shell-box adorned the chest of drawers, and on the 
secretary near the window a bouquet of orange blos- 
soms tied with white satin ribbons stood in a bottle. 
It was a bride’s bouquet; it was the other one’s. She 
looked at it. Charles noticed it; he took it and carried 
it up to the attic, while Emma seated in an armchair 
(they were putting her things down around her) thought 
of her bridal flowers packed up in a bandbox, and 
wondered, dreaming, what would be done with them 
if she were to die. 

During the first days she occupied herself in thinking 
about changes in the house. She took the shades off 
the candlesticks, had new wall-paper put up, the stair- 
case repainted, and seats made in the garden round 
the sundial; she even inquired how she could get a 
basin with a jet fountain and fishes. Finally her hus- 
band, knowing that she liked to drive out, picked 
up a second-hand dogcart, which, with new lamps and 

[ 40 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


a splash-board in striped leather, looked almost like a 
tilbury. 

He was happy then, and without a care in the world. 
A meal together, a walk in the evening on the highroad, 
a gesture of her hands over her hair, the sight of her 
straw hat hanging from the window-fastener, and many 
another thing in which Charles had never dreamed 
of pleasure, now made up the endless round of his hap- 
piness. In bed, in the morning, by her side, on the 
pillow, he watched the sunlight sinking into the down on 
her fair cheek, half hidden by the lappets of her night- 
cap. Seen thus closely, her eyes looked to him enlarged, 
especially when, on waking up, she opened and shut 
them rapidly many times. Black in the shade, dark 
blue in broad daylight, they had, as it were, depths of 
different colours, that, darker in the centre, grew paler 
towards the surface of the eye. His own eyes lost them- 
selves in these depths; he saw himself in miniature 
down to the shoulders, with his handkerchief round 
his head and the top of his shirt open. He rose. She 
came to the window to see him off, and stayed leaning 
on the sill between two pots of geranium, clad in her 
dressing-gown hanging loosely about her. Charles, in 
the street, buckled his spurs, his foot on the mounting 
stone, while she talked to him from above, picking 
with her mouth some scrap of flower or leaf that she blew 
out at him. Then this, eddying, floating, described 
semicircles in the air like a bird, and was caught before 
it reached the ground in the ill-groomed mane of the 
old white mare standing motionless at the door. Charles 
from horseback threw her a kiss; she answered with a 
nod; she shut the window, and he set off. And then 

[41] 


MADAME BOVARY 


along the highroad, spreading out its long ribbon of 
dust, along the deep lanes that the trees bent over as in 
arbours, along paths where the corn reached to the 
knees, with the sun on his back and the morning air 
in his nostrils, his heart full of the joys of the past night, 
his mind at rest, his flesh at ease, he went on, re-chewing 
his happiness, like those who after dinner taste again 
the truffles which they are digesting. 

Until now what good had he had of his life? His 
time at school, when he remained shut up within the high 
walls, alone, in the midst of companions richer than he 
or cleverer at their work, who laughed at his accent, 
who jeered at his clothes, and whose mothers came to the 
school with cakes in their muffs? Later on, when he 
studied medicine, and never had his purse full enough 
to treat some little work-girl who would have become his 
mistress? Afterwards, he had lived fourteen months 
with the widow, whose feet in bed were cold as icicles. 
But now he had for life this beautiful woman whom he 
adored. For him the universe did not extend beyond 
the circumference of her petticoat, and he reproached 
himself with not loving her. He wanted to see her again; 
he turned back quickly, ran up the stairs with a beating 
heart. Emma, in her room, was dressing; he came up 
on tiptoe, kissed her back; she gave a cry. 

He could not keep from constantly touching her comb, 
her rings, her fichu; sometimes he gave her great sound- 
ing kisses with all his mouth on her cheeks, or else little 
kisses in a row all along her bare arm from the tip of 
her fingers up to her shoulder, and she put him away 
half-smiling, half-vexed, as you do a child who hangs 
about you. 


[42] 


MADAME BOVARY 

Before marriage she thought herself in love; but the 
happiness that should have followed this love not having 
come, she must, she thought, have been mistaken. And 
Emma tried to find out what one meant exactly in life 
by the words felicity, passion , rapture , that had seemed 
to her so beautiful in books. 


[ 43 ] 


VI 


S HE had read “Paul and Virginia,” and she had 
dreamed of the little bamboo-house, the nigger 
Domingo, the dog Fidele, but above all of the sweet 
friendship of some dear little brother, who seeks red 
fruit for you on trees taller than steeples, or who runs 
barefoot over the sand, bringing you a bird’s nest. 

When she was thirteen, her father himself took her 
to town to place her in the convent. They stopped at 
an inn in the St. Gervais quarter, where, at their supper, 
they used painted plates that set forth the story of 
Mademoiselle de la Valliere. The explanatory legends, 
chipped here and there by the scratching of knives, 
all glorified religion, the tendernesses of the heart, and 
the pomps of court. 

Far from being bored at first at the convent, she took 
pleasure in the society of the good sisters, who, to amuse 
her, took her to the chapel, which one entered from the 
refectory by a long corridor. She played very little 
during recreation hours, knew her catechism well, and 
it was she who always answered Monsieur Ie Vicaire’s 
difficult questions. Living thus, without ever leaving 
the warm atmosphere of the class-rooms, and amid 
these pale-faced women wearing rosaries with brass 
crosses, she was softly lulled by the mystic languor 
exhaled in the perfumes of the altar, the freshness of 
the holy water, and the lights of the tapers. Instead 
[ 44 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


of attending to mass, she looked at the pious vignettes 
with their azure borders in her book, and she loved the 
sick Iamb, the sacred heart pierced with sharp arrows, or 
the poor Jesus sinking beneath the cross he carries. She 
tried, by way of mortification, to eat nothing a whole 
day. She puzzled her head to find some vow to fulfil. 

When she went to confession, she invented little sins 
in order that she might stay there longer, kneeling in 
the shadow, her hands joined, her face against the grating 
beneath the whispering of the priest. The comparisons 
of betrothed, husband, celestial lover, and eternal mar- 
riage, that recur in sermons, stirred within her soul 
depths of unexpected sweetness. 

In the evening, before prayers, there was some reli- 
gious reading in the study. On week-nights it was some 
abstract of sacred history or the Lectures of the Abbe 
Frayssinous, and on Sundays passages from the “Genie 
du Christianisme,” as a recreation. How she listened 
at first to the sonorous lamentations of its romantic 
melancholies re-echoing through the world and eternity! 
If her childhood had been spent in the shop-parlour 
of some business quarter, she might perhaps have opened 
her heart to those lyrical invasions of Nature, which 
usually come to us only through translation in books. 
But she knew the country too well; she knew the lowing 
of cattle, the milking, the ploughs. Accustomed to 
calm aspects of life, she turned, on the contrary, to those 
of excitement. She loved the sea only for the sake of 
its storms, and the green fields only when broken up 
by ruins. She wanted to get some personal profit out 
of things, and she rejected as useless all that did not 
contribute to the immediate desires of her heart, being 
[ 45 1 


MADAME BOVARY 


of a temperament more sentimental than artistic, look- 
ing for emotions, not landscapes. 

At the convent there was an old maid who came for 
a week each month to mend the linen. Patronized by 
the clergy, because she belonged to an ancient family 
of noblemen ruined by the Revolution, she dined in the 
refectory at the table of the good sisters, and after the 
meal had a bit of chat with them before going back to 
her work. The girls often slipped out from the study 
to go and see her. She knew by heart the Iovesongs of 
the last century, and sang them in a low voice as she 
stitched away. She told stories, gave them news, went 
errands in the town, and on the sly lent the big girls 
some novel, that she always carried in the pockets of 
her apron, and of which the good lady herself swallowed 
long chapters in the intervals of her work. They were 
all love, lovers, sweethearts, persecuted ladies fainting in 
lonely pavilions, postilions killed at every stage, horses 
ridden to death on every page, sombre forests, heart- 
aches, vows, sobs, tears and kisses, little skiffs by moon- 
light, nightingales in shady groves, “gentlemen” brave 
as lions, gentle as Iambs, virtuous as no one ever was, 
always well dressed, and weeping like fountains. For 
six months, then, Emma, at fifteen years of age, made 
her hands dirty with books from old lending libraries. 
With Walter Scott, later on, she fell in love with historical 
events, dreamed of old chests, guard-rooms and min- 
strels. She would have liked to live in some old manor- 
house, like those Iong-waisted chatelaines who, in the 
shade of pointed arches, spent their days leaning on the 
stone, chin in hand, watching a cavalier with white 
plume galloping on his black horse from the distant 
[ 4 6 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 

fields. At this time she had a cult for Mary Stuart 
(and enthusiastic veneration for illustrious or unhappy 
women. Joan of Arc, Heloise, Agnes Sorel, the beautiful 
Ferroniere, and Clemence Isaure stood out to her like 
comets in the dark immensity of heaven, where also 
were seen, lost in shadow, and all unconnected, St. 
Louis with his oak, the dying Bayard, some cruelties of 
Louis XI, a little of St. Bartholomew’s, the plume of 
the Bearnais, and always the remembrance of the plates 
painted in honour of Louis XIV. 

In the music-class, in the ballads she sang, there was 
nothing but little angels with golden wings, madonnas, 
Iagunes, gondoliers; — mild compositions that allowed 
her to catch a glimpse athwart the obscurity of style 
and the weakness of the music of the attractive phantas- 
magoria of sentimental realities. Some of her com- 
panions brought “keepsakes” given them as new year’s 
gifts to the convent. These had to be hidden; it was 
quite an undertaking; they were read in the dormitory. 
Delicately handling the beautiful satin bindings, Emma 
looked with dazzled eyes at the names of the unknown 
authors, who had signed their verses for the most part 
as counts or viscounts. 

She trembled as she blew back the tissue paper over 
the engraving and saw it folded in two and fall gently 
against the page. Here behind the balustrade of a 
balcony was a young man in a short cloak, holding in 
his arms a young girl in a white dress wearing an alms- 
bag at her belt; or there were nameless portraits of Eng- 
lish ladies with fair curls, who looked at you from under 
their round straw hats with their large clear eyes. Some 
there were lounging in their carriages, gliding through 
[ 47 ] 


( 


MADAME BOVARY 


parks, a greyhound bounding along in front of the equip- 
age, driven at a trot by two small postilions in white 
breeches. Others, dreaming on sofas with an open 
letter, gazed at the moon through a slightly open win- 
dow half draped by a black curtain. The naive ones, 
a tear on their cheeks, were kissing doves through the 
bars of a Gothic cage, or, smiling, their heads on one 
side, were plucking the leaves of a marguerite with their 
taper fingers, that curved at the tips like peaked shoes. 
And you, too, were there, Sultans with long pipes 
reclining beneath arbours in the arms of Bayaderes; 
Djiaours, Turkish sabres, Greek caps; and you espe- 
cially, pale landscapes of dithyrambic lands, that often 
show us at once palm-trees and firs, tigers on the right, 
a lion to the left, Tartar minarets on the horizon; the 
whole framed by a very neat virgin forest, and with a 
great perpendicular sunbeam trembling in the water, 
where, standing out in relief like white excoriations on 
a steel-grey ground, swans are swimming about/ 

And the shade of the argand lamp fastened to the 
wall above Emma’s head lighted up all these pictures 
of the world, that passed before her one by one in the 
silence of the dormitory, and to the distant noise of some 
belated carriage rolling over the Boulevards. 

When her mother died she cried much the first few 
days. She had a funeral picture made with the hair 
of the deceased, and, in a letter sent to the Bertaux 
full of sad reflections on life, she asked to be buried 
later on in the same grave. The goodman thought she 
must be ill, and came to see her. Emma was secretly 
pleased that she had reached at a first attempt the 
rare ideal of pale lives, never attained by mediocre 

[48] 


MADAME BOVARY 


hearts. She let herself glide along with Lamartine 
meanderings, listened to harps on lakes, to all the songs 
of dying swans, to the falling of the leaves, the pure 
virgins ascending to heaven, and the voice of the Eternal 
discoursing down the valleys. She wearied of it, would 
not confess it, continued from habit, and at last was 
surprised to feel herself soothed, and with no more sad- 
ness at heart than wrinkles on her brow. 

The good nuns, who had been so sure of her vocation, 
perceived with great astonishment that Mademoiselle 
Rouault seemed to be slipping from them. They had 
indeed been so lavish to her of prayers, retreats, no- 
venas, and sermons, they had so often preached the 
respect due to saints and martyrs, and given so much 
good advice as to the modesty of the body and the sal- 
vation of her soul, that she did as tightly reigned horses: 
she pulled up short and the bit slipped from her teeth. 
This nature, positive in the midst of its enthusiasms, 
that had loved the church for the sake of the flowers, 
and music for the words of the songs, and literature for 
its passional stimulus, rebelled against the mysteries 
of faith as it grew irritated "by discipline, a thing anti- 
pathetic to her constitution. When her father took 
her from school, no one was sorry to see her go. The 
Lady Superior even thought that she had latterly been 
somewhat irreverent to the community. 

Emma, at home once more, first took pleasure in look- 
ing after the servants, then grew disgusted with the 
country and missed her convent. When Charles came 
to the Bertaux for the first time, she thought herself 
quite disillusioned, with nothing more to learn, and 
nothing more to feel. 


[49] 


MADAME BOVARY 


But the uneasiness of her new position, or perhaps 
the disturbance caused by the presence of this man, 
had sufficed to make her believe that she at last felt that 
wondrous passion which, till then, like a great bird 
with rose-coloured wings, hung in the splendour of the 
skies of poesy; and now she could not think that the 
calm in which she lived was the happiness she had 
dreamed. 


[50] 


VII 


OHE thought, sometimes, that, after all, this was the 
^ happiest time of her life — the honeymoon, as people 
called it. To taste the full sweetness of it, it would 
have been necessary doubtless to fly to those lands with 
sonorous names where the days after marriage are full 
of laziness most suave. In postchaises behind blue 
silken curtains to ride slowly up steep roads, listening 
to the song of the postilion re-echoed by the moun- 
tains, along with the bells of goats and the muffled 
sound of a waterfall; at sunset on the shores of gulfs 
to breathe in the perfume of lemon-trees; then in the 
evening on the villa-terraces above, hand in hand to look 
at the stars, making plans for the future. It seemed to 
her that certain places on earth must bring happiness, 
as a plant peculiar to the soil, and that cannot thrive 
elsewhere. Why could not she lean over balconies 
in Swiss chalets, or enshrine her melancholy in a Scotch 
cottage, with a husband dressed in a black velvet coat 
with long tails, and thin shoes, a pointed hat and frills? 

Perhaps she would have liked to confide all these 
things to someone. But how tell an undefinable un- 
easiness, variable as the clouds, unstable as the winds? 
Words failed her — the opportunity, the courage. 

If Charles had but wished it, if he had guessed it, if 
his look had but once met her thought, it seemed to 
her that a sudden plenty would have gone out from her 

[51] 


MADAME BOVARY 


heart, as the fruit falls from a tree when shaken by a 
hand. But as the intimacy of their life became deeper, 
the greater became the gulf that separated her from him. 

Charles’s conversation was commonplace as a street 
pavement, and everyone’s ideas trooped through it in 
their everyday garb, without exciting emotion, laugh- 
ter, or thought. He had never had the curiosity, he 
said, while he lived at Rouen, to go to the theatre to 
see the actors from Paris. He could neither swim, nor 
fence, nor shoot, and one day he could not explain 
some term of horsemanship to her that she had come 
across in a novel. 

A man, on the contrary, should he not know every- 
thing, excel in manifold activities, initiate you into the 
energies of passion, the refinements of life, all mysteries? 
But this one taught nothing, knew nothing, wished 
nothing. He thought her happy; and she resented 
this easy calm, this serene heaviness, the very happiness 
she gave him. 

Sometimes she would draw; and it was great amuse- 
ment to Charles to stand there bolt upright and watch 
her bend over her cardboard, with eyes half-closed the 
better to see her work, or rolling, between her fingers, 
little bread-pellets. As to the piano, the more quickly 
her fingers glided over it the more he wondered. She 
struck the notes with aplomb, and ran from top to bot- 
tom of the keyboard without a break. Thus shaken 
up, the old instrument, whose strings buzzed, could be 
heard at the other end of the village when the window 
was open, and often the bailiff’s clerk, passing along 
the highroad bare-headed and in list slippers, stopped 
to listen, his sheet of paper in his hand. 

[52] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Emma, on the other hand, knew how to look after 
her house. She sent the patients’ accounts in well- 
phrased letters that had no suggestion of a bill. When 
they had a neighbour to dinner on Sundays, she managed 
to have some tasty dish — piled up pyramids of green- 
gages on vine leaves, served up preserves turned out into 
plates — and even spoke of buying finger-glasses for 
dessert. From all this much consideration was extended 
to Bovary. 

Charles finished by rising in his own esteem for posses- 
sing such a wife. He showed with pride in the sitting- 
room two small pencil sketches by her that he had had 
framed in very large frames, and hung up against the 
wall-paper by long green cords. People returning from 
mass saw him at his door in his wool-work slippers. 

He came home late — at ten o’clock, at midnight 
sometimes. Then he asked for something to eat, and 
as the servant had gone to bed, Emma waited on him. 
He took off his coat to dine more at his ease. He told 
her, one after the other, the people he had met, the 
villages where he had been, the prescriptions he had 
written, and, well pleased with himself, he finished the 
remainder of the boiled beef and onions, picked pieces off 
the cheese, munched an apple, emptied his water-bottle, 
and then went to bed, and lay on his back and snored. 

As he had been for a time accustomed to wear night- 
caps, his handkerchief would not keep down over his 
ears, so that his hair in the morning was all tumbled 
pell-mell about his face and whitened with the feathers 
of the pillow, whose strings came untied during the night. 
He always wore thick boots that had two long creases 
over the instep running obliquely towards the ankle, 
[ 53 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


while the rest of the upper continued in a straight line as 
if stretched on a wooden foot. He said that “was quite 
good enough for the country.’ * 

His mother approved of his economy, for she came to 
see him as formerly when there had been some violent 
row at her place; and yet Madame Bovary senior seemed 
prejudiced against her daughter-in-law. She thought 
“her ways too fine for their position”; the wood, the 
sugar, and the candles disappeared as “at a grand estab- 
lishment,” and the amount of firing in the kitchen would 
have been enough for twenty-five courses. She put 
her linen in order for her in the presses, and taught her 
to keep an eye on the butcher when he brought the 
meat. Emma put up with these lessons. Madame 
Bovary was lavish of them; and the words “daughter” 
and “mother” were exchanged all day long, accompanied 
by little quiverings of the lips, each one uttering gentle 
words in a voice trembling with anger. 

In Madame Dubuc’s time the old woman felt that she 
was still the favourite; but now the love of Charles for 
Emma seemed to her a desertion from her tenderness, 
an encroachment upon what was hers, and she watched 
her son’s happiness in sad silence, as a ruined man looks 
through the windows at people dining in his old house. 
She recalled to him as remembrances her troubles and 
her sacrifices, and, comparing these with Emma’s negli- 
gence, came to the conclusion that it was not reasonable 
to adore her so exclusively. 

Charles knew not what to answer: he respected his 
mother, and he loved his wife infinitely; he considered 
the judgment of the one infallible, and yet he thought 
the conduct of the other irreproachable. When Madame 

[54] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Bovary had gone, he tried timidly and in the same terms 
to hazard one or two of the more anodyne observations 
he had heard from his mamma. Emma proved to him 
with a word that he was mistaken, and sent him off to 
his patients. 

And yet, in accord with theories she believed right, 
she wanted to make herself in love with him. By moon- 
light in the garden she recited all the passionate rhymes 
she knew by heart, and, sighing, sang to him many 
melancholy adagios; but she found herself as calm after 
this as before, and Charles seemed no more amorous 
and no more moved. 

When she had thus for a while struck the flint on her 
heart without getting a spark, incapable, moreover, of 
understanding what she did not experience as of believ- 
ing anything that did not present itself in conventional 
forms, she persuaded herself without difficulty that 
Charles’s passion was nothing very exorbitant. His out- 
bursts became regular; he embraced her at certain fixed 
times. It was one habit among other habits, and, like a 
dessert, looked forward to after the monotony of dinner. 

A gamekeeper, cured by the doctor of inflammation 
of the lungs, had given madame a little Italian grey- 
hound; she took her out walking, for she went out 
sometimes in order to be alone for a moment, and not to 
see before her eyes the eternal garden and the dusty 
road. She went as far as the beeches of Banneville, near 
the deserted pavilion which forms an angle of the wall 
on the side of the country. Amidst the vegetation of the 
ditch there are long reeds with leaves that cut you. 

She began by looking round her to see if nothing had 
changed since last she had been there. She found again 

[55] 


MADAME BOVARY 


in the same places the foxgloves and wallflowers, the 
beds of nettles growing round the big stones, and the 
patches of lichen along the three windows, whose shut- 
ters, always closed, were rotting away on their rusty 
iron bars. Her thoughts, aimless at first, wandered 
at random, like her greyhound, who ran round and 
round in the fields, yelping after the yellow butterflies, 
chasing the shrewmice, or nibbling the poppies on the 
edge of a cornfield. Then gradually her ideas took 
definite shape, and, sitting on the grass that she dug 
up with little prods of her sunshade, Emma repeated 
to herself, “Good heavens! why did I marry?” 

She asked herself if by some other chance combination 
it would not have been possible to meet another man; 
and she tried to imagine what would have been these 
unrealised events, this different life, this unknown hus- 
band. All, surely, could not be like this one. He 
might have been handsome, witty, distinguished, at- 
tractive, such as, no doubt, her old companions of the 
convent had married. What were they doing now? 
In town, with the noise of the streets, the buzz of the 
theatres, and the lights of the ball-room, they were 
living lives where the heart expands, the senses bourgeon 
out. But she — her life was cold as a garret whose 
dormer-window looks on the north, and ennui, the silent 
spider, was weaving its web in the darkness in every 
corner of her heart. She recalled the prize-days, when 
she mounted the platform to receive her little crowns, 
with her hair in long plaits. In her white frock and 
open prunella shoes she had a pretty way, and when 
she went back to her seat, the gentlemen bent over her 
to congratulate her; the courtyard was full of carriages; 
[56] 


MADAME BOVARY 


farewells were called to her through their windows; 
the music-master with his violin-case bowed in passing 
by. How far off all this! How far away! 

She called Djali, took her between her knees, and 
smoothed the long, delicate head, saying, “Come, kiss 
mistress; you have no troubles.” 

Then noting the melancholy face of the graceful 
animal, who yawned slowly, she softened, and com- 
paring her to herself, spoke to her aloud as to somebody 
in trouble whom one is consoling. 

Occasionally there came gusts of wind, breezes from 
the sea rolling in one sweep over the whole plateau of 
the Caux country, which brought even to these fields 
a salt freshness. The rushes, close to the ground, 
whistled; the branches trembled in a swift rustling, while 
their summits, ceaselessly swaying, kept up a deep 
murmur. Emma drew her shawl round her shoulders 
and rose. 

In the avenue a green light dimmed by the leaves 
lit up the short moss that crackled softly beneath her 
feet. The sun was setting; the sky showed red between 
the branches, and the trunks of the trees, uniform, and 
planted in a straight line, seemed a brown colonnade 
standing out against a background of gold. A fear took 
hold of her; she called Djali, and hurriedly returned to 
Tostes by the highroad, threw herself into an arm-chair, 
and for the rest of the evening did not speak. 

But towards the end of September something 
extraordinary fell upon her life; she was invited by the 
Marquis d’Andervilliers to Vaubyessard. 

Secretary of State under the Restoration, the Marquis, 
anxious to re-enter political life, set about preparing for 
[ 57 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


his candidature to the Chamber of Deputies long before- 
hand. In the winter he distributed a great deal of wood, 
and in the Conseil General always enthusiastically 
demanded new roads for his arrondissement. During 
the dog-days he had suffered from an abscess, which 
Charles had cured as if by miracle by giving a timely 
little touch with the lancet. The steward sent to Tostes 
to pay for the operation reported in the evening that 
he had seen some superb cherries in the doctor’s little 
garden. Now cherry-trees did not thrive at Vaubyes- 
sard; the Marquis asked Bovary for some slips; made 
it his business to thank him personally; saw Emma; 
thought she had a pretty figure, and that she did not 
bow like a peasant; so that he did not think he was going 
beyond the bounds of condescension, nor, on the other 
hand, making a mistake, in inviting the young couple. 

One Wednesday at three o’clock. Monsieur and Ma- 
dame Bovary, seated in their dog-cart, set out for Vau- 
byessard, with a great trunk strapped on behind and a 
bonnet-box in front on the apron. Besides these Charles 
held a bandbox between his knees. 

They arrived at nightfall, just as the lamps in the 
park were being lit to show the way for the carriages. 


[58] 


VIII 


nPHE chateau, a modern building in Italian style, 
* with two projecting wings and three flights of steps, 
lay at the foot of an immense green-sward, on which some 
cows were grazing among groups of large trees set out 
at regular intervals, while large beds of arbutus, rhodo- 
dendron, syringas, and guelder roses bulged out their 
irregular clusters of green along the curve of the gravel 
path. A river flowed under a bridge; through the mist 
one could distinguish buildings with thatched roofs scat- 
tered over the field bordered by two gently-sloping, well- 
timbered hillocks, and in the background amid the trees 
rose in two parallel lines the coach-houses and stables, all 
that was left of the ruined old chateau. 

Charles’s dog-cart pulled up before the middle flight 
of steps; servants appeared; the Marquis came forward, 
and, offering his arm to the doctor’s wife, conducted her 
to the vestibule. 

It was paved with marble slabs, was very lofty, and 
the sound of footsteps and that of voices re-echoed 
through it as in a church. Opposite rose a straight 
staircase, and on the left a gallery overlooking the garden 
led to the billiard-room, through whose door one could 
hear the click of the ivory balls. As she crossed it to go 
to the drawing-room, Emma saw standing round the 
table men with grave faces, their chins resting on high 
cravats. They all wore orders, and smiled silently 
[ 59 ] * 


MADAME BOVARY 


as they made their strokes. On the dark wainscoting 
of the walls large gold frames bore at the bottom names 
written in black letters. She read: “Jean -Antoine 
d’Andervilliers d’Yvervonbille, Count de la Vaubyes- 
sard and Baron de la Fresnaye, killed at the battle of 
Coutras on the 20th of October, 1857.” And on another: 
“ Jean-Antoine-Henry-Guy d’Andervilliers de la Vau- 
byessard, Admiral of France and Chevalier of the Order 
of St. Michael, wounded at the battle of the Hougue- 
Saint-Vaast on the 29th of May, 1692; died at Vau- 
byessard on the 23rd of January, 1693.” One could 
hardly make out those that followed, for the light of the 
lamps lowered over the green cloth threw a dim shadow 
round the room. Burnishing the horizontal pictures, it 
broke up against these in delicate lines where there were 
cracks in the varnish, and from all these great black 
squares framed in with gold stood out here and there 
some lighter portion of the painting — a pale brow, 
two eyes that looked at you, perukes flowing over and 
powdering red-coated shoulders, or the buckle of a 
garter above a well-rounded calf. 

The Marquis opened the drawing-room door; one of 
the ladies (the Marchioness herself) came to meet Emma. 
She made her sit down by her on an ottoman, and began 
talking to her as amicably as if she had known her a 
long time. She was a woman of about forty, with 
fine shoulders, a hook nose, a drawling voice, and on this 
evening she wore over her brown hair a simple guipure 
fichu that fell in a point at the back. A fair young 
woman sat in a high-backed chair in a corner; and 
gentlemen with flowers in their button-holes were talk- 
ing to ladies round the fire. 

[60] 


MADAME BOVARY 


At seven dinner was served. The men, who were in 
the majority, sat down at the first table in the vestibule; 
the ladies at the second in the dining-room with the 
Marquis and Marchioness. 

Emma, on entering, felt herself wrapped round by 
the warm air, a blending of the perfume of flowers and 
of the fine linen, of the fumes of the viands, and the 
odour of the truffles. The silver dish-covers reflected the 
lighted wax candles in the candelabra, the cut crystal 
covered with light steam reflected from one to the other 
pale rays; bouquets were placed in a row the whole 
length of the table; and in the large-bordered plates each 
napkin, arranged after the fashion of a bishop’s mitre, held 
between its two gaping folds a small oval-shaped roll. 
The red claws of lobsters hung over the dishes; rich 
fruit in open baskets was piled up on moss; there were 
quails in their plumage; smoke was rising; and in silk 
stockings, knee-breeches, white cravat, and frilled shirt, 
the steward, grave as a judge, offering ready-carved 
dishes between the shoulders of the guests, with a touch 
of the spoon gave you the piece chosen. On the large 
stove of porcelain inlaid with copper baguettes the 
statue of a woman, draped to the chin, gazed motionless 
on the room full of life. 

Madame Bovary noticed that many ladies had not 
put their gloves in their glasses. 

But at the upper end of the table, alone amongst 
all these women, bent over his full plate, and his napkin 
tied round his neck like a child, an old man sat eating, 
letting drops of gravy drip from his mouth. His eyes 
were bloodshot, and he wore a little queue tied with a 
black ribbon. He was the Marquis’s father-in-law, 

[ 61 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 

the old Duke de Laverdiere, once on a time favourite 
of the Count d’ Artois, in the days of the Vaudreuil 
hunting-parties at the Marquis de Conflans’, and had 
been, it was said, the lover of Queen Marie Antoinette, 
between Monsieur de Coigny and Monsieur de Lauzun. 
He had lived a life of noisy debauch, full of duels, bets, 
elopements; he had squandered his fortune and fright- 
ened all his family. A servant behind his chair named 
aloud to him in his ear the dishes that he pointed to 
stammering, and constantly Emma’s eyes turned in- 
voluntarily to this old man with hanging lips, as to some- 
thing extraordinary. He had lived at court and slept 
in the bed of queens! 

Iced champagne was poured out. Emma shivered 
all over as she felt it cold in her mouth. She had 
never seen pomegranates nor tasted pine-apples. The 
powdered sugar even seemed to her whiter and finer 
than elsewhere. 

The ladies afterwards went to their rooms to prepare 
for the ball. 

Emma made her toilet with the fastidious care of an 
actress on her debut. She did her hair according to the 
directions of the hairdresser, and put on the barege 
dress spread out upon the bed. Charles’s trousers were 
tight across the belly. 

“My trouser-straps will be rather awkward for dan- 
cing,” he said. 

“Dancing?” repeated Emma. 

“Yes!” 

“Why, you must be mad! They would make fun of 
you; keep your place. Besides, it is more becoming 
for a doctor,” she added. 

[62] 


t 


MADAME BOVA RY 


Charles was silent. He walked up and down waiting 
for Emma to finish dressing. 

He saw her from behind in the glass between two 
lights. Her black eyes seemed blacker than ever. Her 
hair, undulating towards the ears, shone with a blue 
lustre; a rose in her chignon trembled on its mobile 
stalk, with artificial dewdrops on the tip of the leaves. 
She wore a gown of pale saffron trimmed with three 
bouquets of pompon roses mixed with green. 

Charles came and kissed her on her shoulder. 

“Let me alone !” she said; “you are tumbling me.” 

One could hear the flourish of the violin and the notes 
of a horn. She went downstairs restraining herself from 
running. 

Dancing had begun. Guests were arriving. There was 
some crushing. She sat down on a form near the door. 

The quadrille over, the floor was occupied by groups 
of men standing up and talking and servants in livery 
bearing large trays. Along the line of seated women 
painted fans were fluttering, bouquets half hid smiling 
faces, and gold-stoppered scent-bottles were turned in 
partly-closed haiids, whose white gloves outlined the 
nails and tightened on the flesh at the wrists. Lace 
trimmings, diamond brooches, medallion bracelets 
trembled on bodices, gleamed on breasts, clinked on 
bare arms. The hair, well smoothed over the templ^ 
and knotted at the nape, bore crowns, or bunches, or 
sprays of myosotis, jasmine, pomegranate blossoms, 
ears of corn, and corn-flowers. Calmly seated in their 
places, mothers with forbidding countenances were 
wearing red turbans. 

Emma’s heart beat rather faster when, her partner 

[63] 


MADAME BOVARY 


holding her by the tips of the fingers, she took her place 
in a line with the dancers, and waited for the first note 
to start. But her emotion soon vanished, and, swaying 
to the rhythm of the orchestra, she glided forward with 
slight movements of the neck. A smile rose to her lips 
at certain delicate phrases of the violin, that sometimes 
played alone while the other instruments were silent; 
one could hear the clear clink of the Iouis d’or that were 
being thrown down upon the card-tables in the next 
room; then all struck in again, the cornet-a-piston 
uttered its sonorous note, feet marked time, skirts swelled 
and rustled, hands touched and parted; the same eyes 
falling before you met yours again. 

A few men (some fifteen or so), of twenty-five to forty, 
scattered here and there among the dancers or talking 
at the doorways, distinguished themselves from the crowd 
by a certain air of breeding, whatever their differences 
in age, dress, or face. 

Their clothes, better made, seemed of finer cloth, 
and their hair, brought forward in curls towards the 
temples, glossy with more delicate pomades. They 
had the complexion of wealth, — that clear complexion 
that is heightened by the pallor of porcelain, the shimmer 
of satin, the veneer of old furniture, and that an ordered 
regimen of exquisite nurture maintains at its best. Their 
necks moved easily in their low cravats, their long whis- 
kers fell over their turned-down collars, they wiped 
their lips upon handkerchiefs with embroidered initials 
that gave forth a subtle perfume. Those who were 
beginning to grow old had an air of youth, while there 
was something mature in the faces of the young. In 
their unconcerned looks was the calm of passions daily 
[64] 


MADAME BOVARY 


satiated, and through all their gentleness of manner 
pierced that peculiar brutality, the result of a command 
of half-easy things, in which force is exercised and vanity 
amused — the management of thoroughbred horses and 
the society of loose women. 

A few steps from Emma a gentleman in a blue coat 
was talking of Italy with a pale young woman wearing 
a parure of pearls. 

They were praising the breadth of the columns of 
St. Peter’s, Tivoli, Vesuvius, Castellamare, and Cassines, 
the roses of Genoa, the Coliseum by moonlight. With 
her other ear Emma was listening to a conversation full 
of words she did not understand. A circle gathered 
round a very young man who the week before had beaten 
“Miss Arabella” and “Romolus,” and won two thousand 
Iouis jumping a ditch in England. One complained that 
his racehorses were growing fat; another of the printers’ 
errors that had disfigured the name of his horse. 

The atmosphere of the ball was heavy; the lamps 
were growing dim. Guests were flocking to the billiard- 
room. A servant got upon a chair and broke the window- 
panes. At the crash of the glass Madame Bovary 
turned her head and saw in the garden the faces of peas- 
ants pressed against the window looking in at them. 
Then the memory of the Bertaux came back to her. 
She saw the farm again, the muddy pond, her father 
in a blouse under the apple-trees, and she saw herself 
again as formerly, skimming with her finger the cream 
off the milkpans in the dairy. But in the refulgence 
of the present hour her past life, so distinct until then, 
faded away completely, and she almost doubted having 
lived it. She was there; beyond the ball was only 

[65] 


MADAME BOVARY 


shadow overspreading all the rest. She was just eating 
a maraschino ice that she held with her left hand in 
a silver-gilt cup, her eyes half-closed, and the spoon 
between her teeth. 

A lady near her dropped her fan. A gentleman was 
passing. 

“Would you be so good,” said the lady, “as to pick 
up my fan that has fallen behind the sofa?” 

The gentleman bowed, and as he moved to stretch out 
his arm, Emma saw the hand of the young woman throw 
something white, folded in a triangle, into his hat. The 
gentleman picking up the fan, offered it to the lady 
respectfully; she thanked him with an inclination of the 
head, and began smelling her bouquet. 

After supper, where were plenty of Spanish and Rhine 
wines, soups a la bisque and an lait d’amandes , puddings 
a la Trafalgar, and all sorts of cold meats with jellies 
that trembled in the dishes, the carriages one after the 
other began to drive off. Raising the corners of the 
muslin curtain, one could see the light of their lanterns 
glimmering through the darkness. The seats began to 
empty, some card-players were still left; the musicians 
were cooling the tips of their fingers on their tongues. 
Charles was half asleep, his back propped against a door. 

At three o’clock the cotillion began. Emma did not 
know how to waltz. Everyone was waltzing, Made- 
moiselle d’Andervilliers herself and the Marquis; only 
the guests staying at the castle were still there, about 
a dozen persons. 

One of the waltzers, however, who was familiarly 
called Viscount, and whose low cut waistcoat seemed 
moulded to his chest, came a second time to ask Madame 
[ 66 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Bovary to clance, assuring her that he would guide her, 
and that she would get through it very well. 

They began slowly, then went more rapidly. They 
turned; all around them was turning — the lamps, the 
furniture, the wainscoting, the floor, like a disc on a 
pivot. On passing near the doors the bottom of Emma's 
dress caught against his trousers. Their legs com- 
mingled; he looked down at her; she raised her eyes to 
his. A torpor seized her; she stopped. They started 
again, and with a more rapid movement; the Viscount, 
dragging her along, disappeared with her to the end of 
the gallery, where, panting, she almost fell, and for a 
moment rested her head upon his breast. And then, 
still turning, but more slowly, he guided her back to her 
seat. She leaned back against the wall and covered her 
eyes with her hands. 

When she opened them again, in the middle of the 
drawing-room three waltzers were kneeling before a 
lady sitting on a stool. She chose the Viscount, and 
the violin struck up once more. 

Everyone looked at them. They passed and repassed, 
she with rigid body, her chin bent down, and he always 
in the same pose, his figure curved, his elbow rounded, 
his chin thrown forward. That woman knew how to 
waltz! They kept up a long time, and tired out all the 
others. 

Then they talked a few moments longer, and after the 
good-nights, or rather good-mornings, the guests of the 
chateau retired to bed. 

Charles dragged himself up by the balusters. His 
“knees were going up into his body.” He had spent 
five consecutive hours standing bolt upright at the card- 

[67] 


MADAME BOVARY 


tables, watching them play whist, without understanding 
anything about it, and it was with a deep sigh of relief 
that he pulled off his boots. 

Emma threw a shawl over her shoulders, opened the 
window, and leant out. 

The night was dark; some drops of rain were falling. 
She breathed in the damp wind that refreshed her eye- 
lids. The music of the ball was still murmuring in her 
ears, and she tried to keep herself awake in order to 
prolong the illusion of this luxurious life that she would 
soon have to give up. 

Day began to break. She looked long at the windows 
of the chateau, trying to guess which were the rooms of all 
those she had noticed the evening before. She would 
fain have known their lives, have penetrated, blended 
with them. But she was shivering with cold. She 
undressed, and cowered down between the sheets against 
Charles, who was asleep. 

There were a great many people to luncheon. The 
repast lasted ten minutes; no liqueurs were served, 
which astonished the doctor. Next, Mademoiselle d’An- 
dervilliers collected some pieces of roll in a small 
basket to take them to the swans on the ornamental 
waters, and they went to walk in the hot-houses, where 
strange plants, bristling with hairs, rose in pyramids 
under hanging vases, whence, as from overfilled nests 
of serpents, fell long green cords interlacing. The 
orangery, which was at the other end, led by a covered 
way to the outhouses of the chateau. The Marquis, 
to amuse the young woman, took her to see the stables. 
Above the basket-shaped racks porcelain slabs bore the 
names of the horses in black letters. Each animal 
[ 68 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


in its stall whisked its tail when anyone went near and 
said “Tchk! tchk!” The boards of the harness-room 
shone like the flooring of a drawing-room. The carriage 
harness was piled up in the middle against two twisted 
columns, and the bits, the whips, the spurs, the curbs, 
were ranged in a line all along the wall. 

Charles, meanwhile, went to ask a groom to put his 
horse to. The dog-cart was brought to the foot of the 
steps, and, all the parcels being crammed in, the Bovarys 
paid their respects to the Marquis and Marchioness and 
set out again for Tostes. 

Emma watched the turning wheels in silence. Charles, 
on the extreme edge of the seat, held the reins with his 
two arms wide apart, and the little horse ambled along 
in the shafts that were too big for him. The loose 
reins hanging over his crupper were wet with foam, 
and the box fastened on behind the chaise gave great 
regular bumps against it. 

They were on the heights of Thibourville when sud- 
denly some horsemen with cigars between their lips passed 
laughing. Emma thought she recognised the Viscount, 
turned back, and caught on the horizon only the move- 
ment of the heads rising or falling with the unequal 
cadence of the trot or gallop. 

A mile farther on they had to stop to mend with some 
string the traces that had broken. 

But Charles, giving a last look to the harness, saw 
something on the ground between his horse’s legs, and 
he picked up a cigar-case with a green silk border and 
be-blazoned in the centre like the door of a carriage. 

“There are even two cigars in it,” said he; “they’ll 
do for this evening after dinner.” 

[69] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Why, do you smoke?” she asked. 

“Sometimes, when I get a chance.” 

He put his find in his pocket and whipped up the nag. 

When they reached home the dinner was not ready. 
Madame lost her temper. Nastasie answered rudely. 

“Leave the room!” said Emma. “You are forgetting 
yourself. I give you warning.” 

For dinner there was onion soup and a piece of veal 
with sorrel. Charles, seated opposite Emma, rubbed 
his hands gleefully. 

“How good it is to be at home again!” 

Nastasie could be heard crying. He was rather fond 
of the poor girl. She had formerly, during the weari- 
some time of his widowhood, kept him company many 
an evening. She had been his first patient, his oldest 
acquaintance in the place. 

“Have you given her warning for good?” he asked 
at last. 

“Yes. Who is to prevent me?” she replied. 

Then they warmed themselves in the kitchen while 
their room was being made ready. Charles began to 
smoke. He smoked with lips protruded, spitting every 
moment, recoiling at every puff. 

“You’ll make yourself ill,” she said scornfully. 

He put down his cigar and ran to swallow a glass of 
cold water at the pump. Emma seizing hold of the 
cigar-case threw it quickly to the back of the cupboard. 

The next day was a long one. She walked about her 
little garden, up and down the same walks, stopping 
before the beds, before the espalier, before the plaster 
curate, looking with amazement at all these things of 
once-on-a-time that she knew so well. How far off 
[ 70 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


the ball seemed already! What was it that thus set 
so far asunder the morning of the day before yesterday 
and the evening of to-day? Her journey to Vaubyessard 
had made a hole in her life, like one of those great crevices 
that a storm will sometimes make in one night in moun- 
tains. Still she was resigned. She devoutly put away 
in her drawers her beautiful dress, down to the satin 
shoes whose soles were yellowed with the slippery wax 
of the dancing floor. Her heart was like these. In 
its friction against wealth something had come over it 
that could not be effaced. 

The memory of this ball, then, became an occupation 
for Emma. Whenever the Wednesday came round 
she said to herself as she awoke, “Ah! I was there a week 
— a fortnight — three weeks ago.” And little by little 
the faces grew confused in her remembrance. She 
forgot the tune of the quadrilles; she no longer saw the 
liveries and appointments so distinctly; some details 
escaped her, but the regret remained with her. 


[71 ] 


IX 



FTEN when Charles was out she took from the 


cupboard, between the folds of the linen where 
she had left it, the green silk cigar-case. She looked at 
it, opened it, and even smelt the odour of the lining — 
a mixture of verbena and tobacco. Whose was it? 
The Viscount’s? Perhaps it was a present from his 
mistress. It had been embroidered on some rosewood 
frame, a pretty little thing, hidden from all eyes, that 
had occupied many hours, and over which had fallen the 
soft curls of the pensive worker. A breath of love had 
passed over the stitches on the canvas; each prick of the 
needle had fixed there a hope or a memory, and all those 
interwoven threads of silk were but the continuity of the 
same silent passion. And then one morning the Viscount 
had taken it away with him. Of what had they spoken 
when it lay upon the wide-mantelled chimneys between 
flower- vases and Pompadour clocks? She was at Tostes; 
he was at Paris now, far away! What was this Paris like? 
What a vague name! She repeated it in a low voice, for 
the mere pleasure of it; it rang in her ears like a great 
cathedral bell; it shone before her eyes, even on the 
labels of her pomade-pots. 

At night, when the carriers passed under her windows 
in their carts singing the “Marjolaine,” she awoke, and 
listened to the noise of the iron-bound wheels, which, 
as they gained the country road, was soon deadened by 


[72] 


MADAME BOVARY 


the soil. “They will be there to-morrow !” she said 
to herself. 

And she followed them in thought up and down the 
hills, traversing villages, gliding along the highroads by 
the light of the stars. At the end of some indefinite 
distance there was always a confused spot, into which 
her dream died. 

She bought a plan of Paris, and with the tip of her 
finger on the map she walked about the capital. She 
went up the boulevards, stopping at every turning, 
between the lines of the streets, in front of the white 
squares that represented the houses. At last she would 
close the lids of her weary eyes, and see in the darkness 
the gas jets flaring in the wind and the steps of carriages 
lowered with much noise before the peristyles of theatres. 

She took in “La CorbeiIIe, ,, a lady’s journal, and the 
“Sylphe des Salons.” She devoured, without skipping 
a word, all the accounts of first nights, races, and soirees, 
took an interest in the debut of a singer, in the opening 
of a new shop. She knew the latest fashions, the ad- 
dresses of the best tailors, the days of the Bois and the 
Opera. In Eugene Sue she studied descriptions of 
furniture; she read Balzac and George Sand, seeking 
in them imaginary satisfaction for her own desires. 
Even at table she had her book by her, and turned over 
the pages while Charles ate and talked to her. The 
memory of the Viscount always returned as she read. 
Between him and the imaginary personages she made 
comparisons. But the circle of which he was the centre 
gradually widened round him, and the aureole that he 
bore, fading from his form, broadened out beyond, 
lighting up her other dreams. 

C 73 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 

Paris, more vague than the ocean, glimmered before 
Emma’s eyes in an atmosphere of vermilion. The many 
lives that stirred amid this tumult were, however, divided 
into parts, classed as distinct pictures. Emma per- 
ceived only two or three that hid from her all the rest, 
and in themselves represented all humanity. The world 
of ambassadors moved over polished floors in drawing- 
rooms lined with mirrors, round oval tables covered 
with velvet and gold-fringed cloths. There were dresses 
with trains, deep mysteries, anguish hidden beneath 
smiles. Then came the society of the duchesses; all 
were pale; all got up at four o’clock; the women, poor 
angels, wore English point on their petticoats; and the 
men, unappreciated geniuses under a frivolous outward 
seeming, rode horses to death at pleasure parties, spent 
the summer season at Baden, and towards the forties 
married heiresses. In the private rooms of restaurants, 
where one sups after midnight by the light of wax candles, 
laughed the motley crowd of men of letters and actresses. 
They were prodigal as kings, full of ideal, ambitious, 
fantastic frenzy. This was an existence outside that of 
all others, between heaven and earth, in the midst of 
storms, having something of the sublime. For the rest 
of the world it was lost, with no particular place and 
as if non-existent. The nearer things were, moreover, 
the more her thoughts turned away from them. All 
her immediate surroundings, the wearisome country, 
the middle-class imbeciles, the mediocrity of existence, 
seemed to her exceptional, a peculiar chance that had 
caught hold of her, while beyond stretched, as far as eye 
could see, an immense land of joys and passions. She 
confused in her desire the sensualities of luxury with the 
[ 74 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


delights of the heart, elegance of manners with delicacy 
of sentiment. Did not love, like Indian plants, need a 
special soil, a particular temperature? Sighs by moon- 
light, long embraces, tears flowing over yielded hands, 
all the fevers Qf the flesh and the languors of tenderness 
could not be separated from the balconies of great castles 
full of indolence, from boudoirs with silken curtains and 
thick carpets, well-filled flower-stands, a bed on a raised 
dais, nor from the flashing of precious stones and the 
shoulder-knots of liveries. 

The lad from the posting-house who came to groom 
the mare every morning passed through the passage with 
his heavy wooden shoes; there were holes in his blouse; 
his feet were bare in list slippers. And this was the 
groom in knee-breeches with whom she had to be content! 
His work done, he did not come back again all day, 
for Charles on his return put up his horse himself, un- 
saddled him and put on the halter, while the servant- 
girl brought a bundle of straw and threw it as best she 
could into the manger. 

To replace Nastasie (who left Tostes shedding torrents 
of tears) Er?ma took into her service a young girl of 
fourteen, an orphan with a sweet face. She forbade 
her wearing cotton caps, taught her to address her in the 
third person, to bring a glass of water on a plate, to knock 
before coming into a room, to iron, starch, and to dress 
her, — wanted to make a lady's-maid of her. The new 
servant obeyed without a murmur, so as not to be sent 
away; and as madame usually left the key in the side- 
board, Felicite every evening took a small supply of 
sugar that she ate alone in her bed after she had said 
her prayers. 




[ 75 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Sometimes in the afternoon she went to chat with the 
postillions. Madame was in her room upstairs. She 
wore an open dressing-gown that showed between the 
shawl facings of her bodice a pleated chemisette with 
three gold buttons. Her belt was a corded girdle with 
great tassels, and her small garnet-coloured slippers had 
a large knot of ribbon that fell over her instep. She had 
bought herself a blotting-book, writing-case, pen-holder, 
and envelopes, although she had no one to write to; she 
dusted her what-not, looked at herself in the glass, picked 
up a book, and then, dreaming between the lines, let it 
drop on her knees. She longed to travel or to go back 
to her convent. She wished at the same time to die and 
to live in Paris. 

Charles in snow and rain trotted across country. 
He ate omelettes on farmhouse tables, poked his arm 
into damp beds, received the tepid spurt of blood-lettings 
in his face, listened to death-rattles, examined basins, 
turned over a good deal of dirty linen; but every evening 
he found a blazing fire, his dinner ready, easy-chairs, 
and a well-dressed woman, charming with an odour 
of freshness, though no one could say whence the per- 
fume came, or if it were not her skin that made odorous 
her chemise. 

She charmed him by numerous attentions; now it was 
some new way of arranging paper sconces for the candles, 
a flounce that she altered on her gown, or an extraordi- 
nary name for some very simple dish that the servant 
had spoilt, but that Charles swallowed with pleasure to 
the last mouthful. At Rouen she saw some ladies who 
wore a bunch of charms on their watch-chains; she 
bought some charms. She wanted for her mantelpiece 

[ 76 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


two large blue glass vases, and some time after an ivory 
necessaire with a silver-gilt thimble. The less Charles 
understood these refinements the more they seduced 
him. They added something to the pleasure of the 
senses and to the comfort of his fireside. It was like a 
golden dust sanding all along the narrow path of his life. 

He was well, looked well; his reputation was firmly 
established. The country-folk loved him because he 
was not proud. He petted the children, never went to 
the public-house, and, moreover, his morals inspired 
confidence. He was specially successful with catarrhs 
and chest complaints. Being much afraid of killing his 
patients, Charles, in fact, only prescribed sedatives, 
from time to time an emetic, a footbath, or leeches. 
It was not that he was afraid of surgery; he bled people 
copiously like horses, and for the taking out of teeth he 
had the “ devil’s own wrist.” 

Finally, to keep up with the times, he took in “La 
Ruche Medicale,” a new journal whose prospectus had 
been sent him. He read it a little after dinner, but in 
about five minutes the warmth of the room added to 
the effect of his dinner sent him to sleep; and he sat there, 
his chin on his two hands and his hair spreading like a 
mane to the foot of the lamp. Emma looked at him 
and shrugged her shoulders. Why, at least, was not 
her husband one of those men of taciturn passions who 
work at their books all night, and at last, when about 
sixty, the age of rheumatism sets in, wear a string of 
orders on their ill-fitting black coat? She could have 
wished this name of Bovary, which was hers, had been 
illustrious, to see it displayed at the booksellers’, repeated 
in the newspapers, known to all France. But Charles 
C 77 U 


MADAME BOVARY 


had no ambition. An Yvetot doctor whom he had lately 
met in consultation had somewhat humiliated him at 
the very bedside of the patient, before the assembled 
relatives. When, in the evening, Charles told her this 
anecdote, Emma inveighed loudly against his colleague. 
Charles was much touched. He kissed her forehead 
with a tear in his eyes. But she was angered with shame; 
she felt a wild desire to strike him; she went to open the 
window in the passage and breathed in the fresh air to 
calm herself. 

“What a man! what a man!” she said in a low voice, 
biting her lips. 

Besides, she was becoming more irritated with him. 
As he grew older his manner grew heavier; at dessert 
he cut the corks of the empty bottles; after eating he 
cleaned his teeth with his tongue; in taking soup he made 
a gurgling noise with every spoonful; and, as he was 
getting fatter, the puffed-out cheeks seemed to push 
the eyes, always small, up to the temples. 

Sometimes Emma tucked the red borders of his under- 
vest into his waistcoat, rearranged his cravat, and threw 
away the dirty gloves he was going to put on; and this 
was not, as he fancied, for himself; it was for herself, 
by a diffusion of egotism, of nervous irritation. Some- 
times, too, she told him of what she had read, such as a 
passage in a novel, of a new play, or an anecdote of the 
“upper ten” that she had seen in a feuilleton; for, 
after all, Charles was something, an ever-open ear, an 
ever-ready approbation. She confided many a thing 
to her greyhound. She would have done so to the logs 
in the fireplace or to the pendulum of the clock. 

At the bottom of her heart, however, she was waiting 

[78] 


MADAME BOVARY 


for something to happen. Like shipwrecked sailors, she 
turned despairing eyes upon the solitude of her life, seek- 
ing afar off some white sail in the mists of the horizon. 
She did not know what this chance would be, what wind 
would bring it her, towards what shore it would drive her, 
if it would be a shallop or a three-decker, laden with an- 
guish or full of bliss to the portholes. But each morning, 
as she awoke, she hoped it would come that day; she 
listened to every sound, sprang up with a start, won- 
dered that it did not come; then at sunset, always more 
saddened, she longed for the morrow. 

Spring came round. With the first warm weather, 
when the pear-trees began to blossom, she suffered 
from dyspnoea. 

From the beginning of July she counted how many 
weeks there were to October, thinking that perhaps the 
Marquis d’Andervilliers would give another ball at 
Vaubyessard. But all September passed without letters 
or visits. 

After the ennui of this disappointment her heart once 
more remained empty, and then the same series of days 
recommenced. So now they would thus follow one 
another, always the same, immovable, and bringing 
nothing. Other lives, however flat, had at least the 
chance of some event. One adventure sometimes brought 
with it infinite consequences and the scene changed. 
But nothing happened to her; God had willed it so! 
The future was a dark corridor, with its door at the end 
shut fast. 

She gave up music. What was the good of playing? 
Who would hear her? Since she could never, in a velvet 
gown with short sleeves, striking with her light fingers 
C 79 1 


MADAME BOVARY 


the ivory keys of an Erard at a concert, feel the murmur 
of ecstasy envelop her like a breeze, it was not worth 
while boring herself with practising. Her drawing 
cardboard and her embroidery she left in the cupboard. 
What was the good? What was the good? Sewing 
irritated her. “I have read everything,” she said to 
herself. And she sat there making the tongs red-hot, 
or looked at the rain falling. 

How sad she was on Sundays when vespers sounded! 
She listened with dull attention to each stroke of the 
cracked bell. A cat slowly walking over some roof put 
up his back in the pale rays of the sun. The wind on the 
highroad blew up clouds of dust. Afar off a dog some- 
times howled; and the bell, keeping time, continued its 
monotonous ringing that died away over the fields. 

But the people came out from church. The women 
in waxed clogs, the peasants in new blouses, the little 
bareheaded children skipping along in front of them, 
all were going home. And till nightfall, five or six men, 
always the same, stayed playing at corks in front of the 
large door of the inn. 

The winter was severe. The windows every morning 
were covered with rime, and the light shining through 
them, dim as through ground-glass, sometimes did not 
change the whole day long. At four o’clock the lamp 
had to be lighted. 

On fine days she went down into the garden. The 
dew had left on the cabbages a silver lace with long 
transparent threads spreading from one to the other. 
No birds were to be heard; everything seemed asleep, 
the espalier covered with straw, and the vine, like a great 
sick serpent under the coping of the wall, along which, 
[80] 


MADAME BOVARY 

on drawing near, one saw the many-footed woodlice 
crawling. Under the spruce by the hedgerow, the 
cure in the three-cornered hat reading his breviary had 
lost his right foot, and the very plaster, scaling off with 
the frost, had left white scabs on his face. 

Then she went up again, shut her door, put on coals, 
and fainting with the heat of the hearth, felt her boredom 
weigh more heavily than ever. She would have liked 
to go down and talk to the servant, but a sense of shame 
restrained her. 

Every day at the same time the schoolmaster in a 
black skull-cap opened the shutters of his house, and the 
rural policeman, wearing his sabre over his blouse, passed 
by. Night and morning the post-horses, three by three, 
crossed the street to water at the pond. From time to 
time the bell of a public-house door rang, and when it 
was windy one could hear the little brass basins that 
served as signs for the hairdresser’s shop creaking on 
their two rods. This shop had as decoration an old 
engraving of a fashion-plate stuck against a windowpane 
and the wax bust of a woman with yellow hair. He, 
too, the hairdresser, lamented his wasted calling, his 
hopeless future, and dreaming of some shop in a big 
town — at Rouen, for example, overlooking the harbour, 
near the theatre — he walked up and down all day from 
the mairie to the church, sombre and waiting for cus- 
tomers. When Madame Bovary looked up, she always 
saw him there, like a sentinel on duty, with his skull- 
cap over his ears and his vest of lasting. 

Sometimes in the afternoon outside the window of her 
room, the head of a man appeared, a swarthy head with 
black whiskers, smiling slowly, with a broad, gentle 

[81] 


MADAME BOVARY 


smile that showed his white teeth. A waltz immediately 
began, and on the organ, in a little drawing-room, dancers 
the size of a finger, women in pink turbans, Tyrolians 
in jackets, monkeys in frock-coats, gentlemen in knee- 
breeches, turned and turned between the sofas, the 
consoles, multiplied in the bits of looking-glass held 
together at their corners by a piece of gold paper. The 
man turned his handle, looking to the right and left, 
and up at the windows. Now and again, while he shot 
out a long squirt of brown saliva against the milestone, 
with his knee he raised his instrument, whose hard 
straps tired his shoulder; and now, doleful and drawling, 
or gay and hurried, the music escaped from the box, 
droning through a curtain of pink taffeta under a brass 
claw in arabesque. They were airs played in other places 
at the theatres, sung in drawing-rooms, danced to at night 
under lighted lustres, echoes of the world that reached 
even to Emma. Endless sarabands ran through her head, 
and, like an Indian dancing-girl on the flowers of a carpet, 
her thoughts leapt with the notes, swung from dream to 
dream, from sadness to sadness. When the man had 
caught some coppers in his cap, he drew down an old 
cover of blue cloth, hitched his organ on to his back, and 
went off with a heavy tread. She watched him going. 

But it was above all the meal-times that were un- 
bearable to her, in this small room on the ground-floor, 
with its smoking stove, its creaking door, the walls that 
sweated, the damp flags; all the bitterness in life seemed 
served up on her plate, and with the smoke of the boiled 
beef there rose from her secret soul whiffs of sickliness. 
Charles was a slow eater; she played with a few nuts, 
or, leaning on her elbow, amused herself with drawing 
[82] 


MADAME BOVARY 


lines along the oil-cloth table-cover with the point of 
her knife. 

She now let everything in her household take care of 
itself, and Madame Bovary senior, when she came to 
spend part of Lent at Tostes, was much surprised at 
the change. She who was formerly so careful, so dainty, 
now passed whole days without dressing, wore grey 
cotton stockings, and burnt tallow candles. She kept 
saying they must be economical since they were not rich, 
adding that she was very contented, very happy, that 
Tostes pleased her very much, with other speeches that 
closed the mouth of her mother-in-law. Besides, Emma 
no longer seemed inclined to follow her advice ; once even, 
Madame Bovary having thought fit to maintain that 
mistresses ought to keep an eye on the religion of their 
servants, she had answered with so angry a look and so 
cold a smile that the good woman did not interfere again. 

Emma was growing difficile, capricious. She ordered 
dishes for herself, then she did not touch them; one 
day drank only pure milk, and the next cups of tea by 
the dozen. Often she persisted in not going out, then, 
stifling, threw open the windows and put on light dresses. 
After she had well scolded her servant she gave her 
presents or sent her out to see neighbours, just as she 
sometimes threw beggars all the silver in her purse, 
although she was by no means tender-hearted or easily 
accessible to the feelings of others, like most countrybred 
people, who always retain in their souls something of the 
horny hardness of the paternal hands. 

Towards the end of February old Rouault, in memory 
of his cure, himself brought his son-in-law a superb 
turkey, and stayed three days at Tostes. Charles 
[ 8 3 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


being with his patients, Emma kept him company. 
He smoked in the room, spat on the firedogs, talked 
farming, calves, cows, poultry, and municipal council, 
so that when he left she closed the door on him with a 
feeling of satisfaction that surprised even herself. More- 
over she no longer concealed her contempt for anything 
or anybody, and at times she set herself to express singu- 
lar opinions, finding fault with that which others ap- 
proved, and approving things perverse and immoral, 
all of which made her husband open his eyes widely. 

Would this misery last for ever? Would she never 
issue from it? Yet she was as good as all the women 
who were living happily. She had seen duchesses at 
Vaubyessard with clumsier waists and commoner ways, 
and she execrated the injustice of God. She leant her 
head against the walls to weep; she envied lives of stir; 
longed for masked balls, for violent pleasures, with all 
the wildness that she did not know, but that these must 
surely yield. 

She grew pale and suffered from palpitations of the 
heart. Charles prescribed valerian and camphor baths. 
Everything that was tried only seemed to irritate her 
the more. 

On certain days she chattered with feverish rapidity, 
and this over-excitement was suddenly followed by a 
state of torpor, in which she remained without speaking, 
without moving. What then revived her was pouring 
a bottle of eau-de-cologne over her arms. 

As she was constantly complaining about Tostes, 
Charles fancied that her illness was no doubt due to some 
local cause, and fixing on this idea, began to think seri- 
ously of setting up elsewhere. 

[84] 


MADAME BOVARY 

From that moment she drank vinegar, contracted 
a sharp little cough, and completely lost her appetite. 

It cost Charles much to give up Tostes after living 
there four years and “when he was beginning to get on 
there.” Yet if it must be! He took her to Rouen to 
see his old master. It was a nervous complaint: change 
of air was needed. 

After looking about him on this side and on that, 
Charles learnt that in the Neufchatel arrondissement 
there was a considerable market-town called Yonville- 
TAbbaye, whose doctor, a Polish refugee, had decamped 
a week before. Then he wrote to the chemist of the place 
to ask the number of the population, the distance from 
the nearest doctor, what his predecessor had made a 
year, and so forth; and the answer being satisfactory, 
he made up his mind to move towards the spring, if 
Emma’s health did not improve. 

One day when, in view of her departure, she was 
tidying a drawer, something pricked her finger. It was 
a wire of her wedding-bouquet. The orange blossoms 
were yellow with dust and the silver-bordered satin 
ribbons frayed at the edges. She threw it into the fire. 
It flared up more quickly than dry straw. Then it was, 
like a red bush in the cinders, slowly devoured. She 
watched it burn. The little pasteboard berries burst, 
the wire twisted, the gold lace melted; and the shrivelled 
paper corollas, fluttering like black butterflies at the 
back of the stove, at last flew up the chimney. 

When they left Tostes in the month of March, Madame 
Bovary was pregnant. 


[85] 


\ 


PART II 


c 


I 


Y^NVILLE-L’ABBAYE (so called from an old Ca- 
* puchin abbey of which not even the ruins remain), 
is a market-town twenty-four miles from Rouen, between 
the Abbeville and Beauvais roads, at the foot of a 
valley watered by the Rieule, a little river that runs 
into the Andelle after turning three water-mills near its 
mouth, where there are a few trout that the lads amuse 
themselves by fishing for on Sundays. 

We leave the highroad at La Boissiere and keep straight 
on to the top of the Leux hill, whence the valley is seen. 
The river that runs through it makes of it, as it were, 
two regions with distinct physiognomies, — all on the 
left is pasture land, all on the right arable. The meadow 
stretches under a bulge of low hills to join at the back 
with the pasture land of the Vray country, while on 
the eastern side, the plain, gently rising, broadens out, 
showing as far as eye can follow its blond cornfields. 
The water, flowing by the grass, divides with a white 
line the colour of the roads and of the plains, and the 
country is like a great unfolded mantle with a green 
velvet cape bordered with a fringe of silver. 

Before us, on the verge of the horizon, lie the oaks of 
the forest of Argueil, with the steeps of the Saint- Jean 
hills scarred from top to bottom with red irregular lines; 
they are rain-tracks, and these brick-tones standing 
out in narrow streaks against the grey colour of the 
[ 8 9 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


mountain are due to the quantity of iron springs that 
flow beyond in the neighbouring country. 

Here we are on the confines of Normandy, Picardy, 
and the Ile-de-France, a bastard land, whose language 
is without accent as its landscape is without character. 
It is there that they make the worst Neufchatel cheeses 
of all the arrondissement; and, on the other hand, 
farming is costly because so much manure is needed to 
enrich this friable soil full of sand and flints. 

Up to 1835 there was no practicable road for getting 
to Yonville, but about this time a cross-road was made 
which joins that of Abbeville to that of Amiens, and is 
occasionally used by the Rouen waggoners on their way 
to Flanders. Yonville-fAbbaye has remained station- 
ary in spite of its “new outlet.” Instead of improving 
the soil, they persist in keeping up the pasture lands, 
however depreciated they may be in value, and the 
lazy borough, growing away from the plain, has natu- 
rally spread riverwards. It is seen from afar sprawling 
along the banks like a cowherd taking a siesta by the 
water-side. 

At the foot of the hill beyond the bridge begins a 
roadway, planted with young aspens, that leads in a 
straight line to the first houses in the place. These, 
fenced in by hedges, are in the middle of courtyards full 
of straggling buildings, wine-presses, cart-sheds, and 
distilleries scattered under thick trees, with ladders, 
poles, or scythes hung on to the branches. The thatched 
roofs, like fur caps drawn over eyes, reach down over 
about a third of the low windows, whose coarse convex 
glasses have knots in the middle like the bottoms of 
bottles. Against the plaster wall diagonally crossed 
[ 90 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


by black joists, a meagre pear-tree sometimes leans, and 
the ground-floors have at their door a small swing-gate, 
to keep out the chicks that come pilfering crumbs of 
bread steeped in cider on the threshold. But the court- 
yards grow narrower, the houses closer together, and 
the fences disappear; a bundle of ferns swings under a 
window from the end of a broomstick; there is a black- 
smith’s forge and then a wheelwright’s, with two or three 
new carts outside that partly block up the way. Then 
across an open space appears a white house beyond a 
grass mound ornamented by a Cupid, his finger on his 
lips; two brass vases are at each end of a flight of steps; 
scutcheons 1 blaze upon the door. It is the notary’s 
house, and the finest in the place. 

The church is on the other side of the street, twenty 
paces farther down, at the entrance of the square. The 
little cemetery that surrounds it, closed in by a wall 
breast-high, is so full of graves that the old stones, level 
with the ground, form a continuous pavement, on which 
the grass of itself has marked out regular green squares. 
The church was rebuilt during the last years of the 
reign of Charles X. The wooden roof is beginning to 
rot from the top, and here and there has black hollows 
in its blue colour. Over the door, where the organ 
should be, is a loft for the men, with a spiral staircase 
that reverberates under their wooden shoes. 

The daylight coming through the plain glass windows 
falls obliquely upon the pews ranged along the walls, 
which are adorned here and there with a straw mat bear- 
ing beneath it the words in large letters, “ Mr. So-and-so’s 

1 The panonceaux that have to be hung over the doors of notaries. 
— Translator. 

[90 


MADAME BOVARY 


pew.” Farther on, at a spot where the building narrows, 
the confessional forms a pendant to a statuette of the 
Virgin, clothed in a satin robe, coifed with a tulle veil 
sprinkled with silver stars, and with red cheeks, like 
an idol of the Sandwich Islands; and, finally, a copy of 
the “Holy Family, presented by the Minister of the 
Interior,” overlooking the high altar, between four 
candlesticks, closes in the perspective. The choir stalls, 
of deal wood, have been left unpainted. 

The market, that is to say, a tiled roof supported by 
some twenty posts, occupies of itself about half the public 
square of Yonville. The town hall, constructed “from 
the designs of a Paris architect,” is a sort of Greek temple 
that forms the corner next to the chemist’s shop. On 
the ground-floor are three Ionic columns and on the 
first floor a semicircular gallery, while the dome that 
crowns it is occupied by a Gallic cock, resting one foot 
upon the “Charte” and holding in the other the scales 
of Justice. 

But that which most attracts the eye is opposite the 
Lion d’Or inn, the chemist’s shop of Monsieur Homais. 
In the evening especially its argand lamp is lit up and 
the red and green jars that embellish his shop-front 
throw far across the street their two streams of colour; 
then across them as if in Bengal lights is seen the shadow 
of the chemist leaning over his desk. His house from 
top to bottom is placarded with inscriptions written in 
large hand, round hand, printed hand: “Vichy, Seltzer, 
Barege waters, blood purifiers, Raspail patent medicine, 
Arabian racahout, Darcet lozenges, Regnault paste, 
trusses, baths, hygienic chocolate,” etc. And the sign- 
board, which takes up all the breadth of the shop, bears 

[92] 


MADAME BOVARY 


in gold letters, “Homais, Chemist.” Then at the back 
of the shop, behind the great scales fixed to the counter, 
the word “Laboratory” appears on a scroll above a glass 
door, which about half-way up once more repeats “Ho- 
mais” in gold letters on a black ground. 

Beyond this there is nothing to see at Yonville. The 
street (the only one) a gunshot in length and flanked by 
a few shops on either side stops short at the turn of the 
highroad. If it is left on the right hand and the foot of 
the Saint- Jean hills followed the cemetery is soon reached. 

At the time of the cholera, in order to enlarge this, 
a piece of wall was pulled down, and three acres of land 
by its side purchased; but all the new portion is almost 
tenantless; the tombs, as heretofore, continue to crowd 
together towards the gate. The keeper, who is at once 
gravedigger and church beadle (thus making a double 
profit out of the parish corpses), has taken advantage 
of the unused plot of ground to plant potatoes there. 
From year to year, however, his small field grows smaller, 
and when there is an epidemic, he does not know whether 
to rejoice at the deaths or regret the burials. 

“You live on the dead, Lestiboudois ! ” the cure at 
last said to him one day. This grim remark made him 
reflect; it checked him for some time; but to this day 
he carries on the cultivation of his little tubers, and 
even maintains stoutly that they grow naturally. 

Since the events about to be narrated, nothing in 
fact has changed at Yonville. The tin tricolour flag 
still swings at the top of the church-steeple; the two 
chintz streamers still flutter in the wind from the linen- 
draper’s; the chemist’s foetuses, like lumps of white 
amadou, rot more and more in their turbid alcohol, 
[ 93 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


and above the big door of the inn the old golden lion, 
faded by rain, still shows passers-by its poodle mane. 

On the evening when the Bovarys were to arrive at 
Yonville, Widow Lefrangois, the landlady of this inn, 
was so very busy that she sweated great drops as she 
moved her saucepans. To-morrow was market-day. 
The meat had to be cut beforehand, the fowls drawn, 
the soup and coffee made. Moreover, she had the 
boarders* meal to see to, and that of the doctor, his wife, 
and their servant; the billiard-room was echoing with 
bursts of laughter; three millers in a small parlour were 
calling for brandy; the wood was blazing, the brazen 
pan was hissing, and on the long kitchen-table, amid the 
quarters of raw mutton, rose piles of plates that rattled 
with the shaking of the block on which spinach was being 
chopped. From the poultry-yard was heard the scream- 
ing of the fowls whom the servant was chasing in order 
to wring their necks. 

A man slightly marked with small-pox, in green leather 
slippers, and wearing a velvet cap with a gold tassel, 
was warming his back at the chimney. His face ex- 
pressed nothing but self-satisfaction, and he appeared 
to take life as calmly as the goldfinch suspended over his 
head in its wicker cage: this was the chemist. 

“ Artemise!” shouted the landlady, “chop some wood, 
fill the water bottles, bring some brandy, look sharp! 
If only I knew what dessert to offer the guests you are 
expecting! Good heavens! Those furniture-movers are 
beginning their racket in the billiard-room again; and 
their van has been left before the front door! The ‘Hiron- 
delle* might run into it when it draws up. Call Polyte 
and tell him to put it up. Only to think, Monsieur 

[94] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Homais, that since morning they have had about fifteen 
games, and drunk eight jars of cider! Why, they’ll 
tear my cloth for me,” she went on, looking at them 
from a distance, her strainer in her hand. 

“That wouldn’t be much of a loss,” replied Monsieur 
Homais. “You would buy another.” 

“Another billiard-table!” exclaimed the widow. 

“Since that one is coming to pieces, Madame Le- 
fran^ois. I tell you again you are doing yourself harm, 
much harm! And besides, players now want narrow 
pockets and heavy cues. Hazards aren’t played now; 
everything is changed! One must keep pace with the 
times! Just look at Tellier!” 

The hostess reddened with vexation. The chemist 
went on — 

“You may say what you like; his table is better than 
yours; and if one were to think, for example, of getting 
up a patriotic pool for Poland or the sufferers from the 
Lyons floods” — 

“It isn’t beggars like him that’ll frighten us,” inter- 
rupted the landlady, shrugging her fat shoulders. “Come, 
come, Monsieur Homais; as long as the ‘Lion d’Or’ 
exists people will come to it. We’ve feathered our 
nest; while one of these days you’ll find the ‘Cafe Fran- 
cis’ closed with a big placard on the shutters. Change 
my billiard-table!” she went on, speaking to herself, 
“the table that comes in so handy for folding the washing, 
and on which, in the hunting season, I have slept six 
visitors! But that dawdler, Hivert, doesn’t come!” 

“Are you waiting for him for your gentlemen’s dinner?” 

“Wait for him! And what about Monsieur Binet? 
As the clock strikes six you’ll see him come in, for he 

[95 3 


MADAME BOVARY 


hasn’t his equal under the sun for punctuality. He must 
always have his seat in the small parlour. He’d rather 
die than dine anywhere else. And so squeamish as he 
is, and so particular about the cider! Not like Monsieur 
Leon; he sometimes comes at seven, or even half-past, 
and he doesn’t so much as look at what he eats. Such 
a nice young man! Never speaks a rough word!” 

“Well, you see, there’s a great difference between an 
educated man and an old carabineer who is now a tax- 
collector.” 

Six o’clock struck. Binet came in. 

He wore a blue frock-coat falling in a straight line 
round his thin body, and his leather cap, with its lappets 
knotted over the top of his head with string, showed 
under the turned-up peak a bald forehead, flattened 
by the constant wearing of a helmet. He wore a black 
cloth waistcoat, a hair collar, grey trousers, and, all the 
year round, well-blacked boots, that had two parallel 
swellings due to the sticking out of his big-toes. Not 
a hair stood out from the regular line of fair whiskers, 
which, encircling his jaws, framed, after the fashion of a 
garden border, his long, wan face, whose eyes were small 
and the nose hooked. Clever at all games of cards, a 
good hunter, and writing a fine hand, he had at home a 
lathe, and amused himself by turning napkin-rings, with 
which he filled up his house, with the jealousy of an 
artist and the egotism of a bourgeois. 

He went to the small parlour, but the three millers 
had to be got out first, and during the whole time neces- 
sary for laying the cloth, Binet remained silent in his 
place near the stove. Then he shut the door and took 
off his cap in his usual way. 

[ 96 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 

“It isn’t with saying civil things that he’ll wear out 
his tongue,” said the chemist, as soon as he was alone 
with the landlady. 

“He never talks more,” she replied. “Last week two 
travellers in the cloth line were here — such clever 
chaps, who told such jokes in the evening, that I fairly 
cried with laughing; and he stood there like a dab fish 
and never said a word.” 

“Yes,” observed the chemist; “no imagination, no 
sallies, nothing that makes the society-man.” 

“Yet they say he has parts,” objected the landlady. 

“Parts!” replied Monsieur Homais; “he parts! In 
his own line it is possible,” he added in a calmer tone. 
And he went on — 

“Ah! that a merchant, who has large connections, a 
jurisconsult, a doctor, a chemist, should be thus absent- 
minded, that they should become whimsical or even 
peevish, I can understand; such cases are cited in history. 
But at least it is because they are thinking of something. 
Myself, for example, how often has it happened to me 
to look on the bureau for my pen to write a label, and to 
find, after all, that I had put it behind my ear?” 

Madame Lefrangois just then went to the door to 
see if the “Hirondelle” were not coming. She started. 
A man dressed in black suddenly came into the kitchen. 
By the last gleam of the twilight one could see that his 
face was rubicund and his form athletic. 

“What can I do for you, Monsieur Ie Cure?” asked 
the landlady, as she reached down from the chimney 
one of the copper candlesticks placed with their candles 
in a row. “Will you take something? A thimbleful 
of Cassis? A glass of wine?” 

[ 97 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


The priest declined very politely. He had come for 
his umbrella, that he had forgotten the other day at the 
Ernemont convent, and after asking Madame LeTran^ois 
to have it sent to him at the presbytery in the evening, 
he left for the church, from which the Angelas was ringing. 

When the chemist no longer heard the noise of his 
boots along the square, he thought the priest’s behaviour 
just now very unbecoming. This refusal to take any 
refreshment seemed to him the most odious hypocrisy; 
all priests tippled on the sly, and were trying to bring 
back the days of the tithe. 

The landlady took up the defence of her cure. 

“Besides, he could double up four men like you over 
his knee. Last year he helped our people to bring in the 
straw; he carried as many as six trusses at once, he is 
so strong.” 

“Bravo!” said the chemist. “Now just send your 
daughters to confess to fellows with such a temperament! 
I, if I were the Government, I’d have the priests bled 
once a month. Yes, Madame Lefrangois, every month 
— a good phlebotomy, in the interests of the police and 
morals.” 

“Be quiet, Monsieur Homais. You are an infidel; 
you’ve no religion.” 

The chemist answered : “ I have a religion, my religion, 
and I even have more than all these others with their 
mummeries and their juggling. I adore God, on the 
contrary. I believe in the Supreme Being, in a Creator, 
whatever he may be. I care little who has placed us 
here below to fulfil our duties as citizens and fathers of 
families; but I don’t need to go to church to kiss silver 
plates, and fatten, out of my pocket, a lot of good-for- 

[98] 


j 


MADAME BOVARY 


nothings who live better than we do. For one can 
know him as well in a wood, in a field, or even contem- 
plating the eternal vault like the ancients. My God! 
mine is the God of Socrates, of Franklin, of Voltaire, 
and of Beranger! I am for the profession of faith of the 
‘Savoyard Vicar/ and the immortal principles of ’89! 
And I can’t admit of an old boy of a God who takes walks 
in his garden with a cane in his hand, who lodges his 
friends in the belly of whales, dies uttering a cry, and 
rises again at the end of three days; things absurd in 
themselves, and completely opposed, moreover, to all 
physical laws, which proves to us, by the way, that 
priests have always wallowed in turpid ignorance, in 
which they would fain engulf the people with them.” 

He ceased, looking round for an audience, for in his 
bubbling over the chemist had for a moment fancied 
himself in the midst of the town council. But the 
landlady no longer heeded him; she was listening to a 
distant rolling. One could distinguish the noise of a 
carriage mingled with the clattering of loose horseshoes 
that beat against the ground, and at last the “Hiron- 
delle” stopped at the door. 

It was a yellow box on two large wheels, that, reaching 
to the tilt, prevented travellers from seeing the road and 
dirtied their shoulders. The small panes of the narrow 
windows rattled in their sashes when the coach was 
closed, and retained here and there patches of mud 
amid the old layers of dust, that not even storms of rain 
had altogether washed away. It was drawn by three 
horses, the first a leader, and when it came down-hill 
its bottom jolted against the ground. 

Some of the inhabitants of Yonville came out into the 

[ 99 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


square; they all spoke at once, asking for news, for 
explanations, for hampers. Hivert did not know whom 
to answer. It was he who did the errands of the place 
in town. He went to the shops and brought back rolls 
of leather for the shoemaker, old iron for the farrier, 
a barrel of herrings for his mistress, caps from the mil- 
liner’s, locks from the hair-dresser’s, and all along the 
road on his return journey he distributed his parcels, 
which he threw, standing upright on his seat and shout- 
ing at the top of his voice, over the enclosures of the 
yards. 

An accident had delayed him. Madame Bovary’s 
greyhound had run across the field. They had whistled 
for him a quarter of an hour; Hivert had even gone 
back a mile and a half expecting every moment to catch 
sight of her; but it had been necessary to go on. Emma 
had wept, grown angry; she had accused Charles of this 
misfortune. Monsieur Lheureux, a draper, who hap- 
pened to be in the coach with her, had tried to console 
her by a number of examples of lost dogs recognising 
their masters at the end of long years. One, he said, 
had been told of, who had come back to Paris from 
Constantinople. Another had gone one hundred and 
fifty miles in a straight line, and swum four rivers; and 
his own father had possessed a poodle, which, after twelve 
years of absence, had all of a sudden jumped on his back 
in the street as he was going to dine in town. 


[ IOO ] 


II 


E MMA got out first, then Felicite, Monsieur Lheureux, 
and a nurse, and they had to wake up Charles in 
his corner, where he had slept soundly since night set in. 

Homais introduced himself; he offered his homages 
to madame and his respects to monsieur; said he was 
charmed to have been able to render them some slight 
service, and added with a cordial air that he had ventured 
to invite himself, his wife being away. 

When Madame Bovary was in the kitchen she went 
up to the chimney. With the tips of her fingers she 
caught her dress at the knee, and having thus pulled it 
up to her ankle, held out her foot in its black boot to the 
fire above the revolving leg of mutton. The flame lit 
up the whole of her, penetrating with a crude light the 
woof of her gowns, the fine pores of her fair skin, and 
even her eyelids, which she blinked now and again. A 
great red glow passed over her with the blowing of the 
wind through the half-open door. On the other side of 
the chimney a young man with fair hair watched her 
silently. 

As he was a good deal bored at Yonville, where he was 
a clerk at the notary’s, Monsieur Guillaumin, Monsieur 
Leon Dupuis (it was he who was the second habitue of 
the “Lion d’Or”) frequently put back his dinner-hour 
in the hope that some traveller might come to the inn, 
with whom he could chat in the evening. On the days 

[ioi] 


MADAME BOVARY 


when his work was done early, he had, for want of some- 
thing else to do, to come punctually, and endure from 
soup to cheese a tete-a-tete with Binet. It was therefore 
with delight that he accepted the landlady’s suggestion 
that he should dine in company with the newcomers, 
and they passed into the large parlour where Madame 
Lefran^ois, for the purpose of showing off, had had the 
table laid for four. 

Homais asked to be allowed to keep on his skull-cap, 
for fear of coryza; then, turning to his neighbour — 

“Madame is no doubt a little fatigued; one gets 
jolted so abominably in our ‘Hirondelle.’” 

“That is true,” replied Emma; “but moving about 
always amuses me. I like change of place.” 

“It is so tedious,” sighed the clerk, “to be always 
riveted to the same places.” 

“If you were like me,” said Charles, “constantly 
obliged to be in the saddle” 

“But,” Leon went on, addressing himself to Madame 
Bovary, “nothing, it seems to me, is more pleasant — 
when one can,” he added. 

“Moreover,” said the druggist, “the practice of medi- 
cine is not very hard work in our part of the world, for 
the state of our roads allows us the use of gigs, and 
generally, as the farmers are prosperous, they pay pretty 
well. We have, medically speaking, besides the ordi- 
nary cases of enteritis, bronchitis, bilious affections, 
etc., now and then a few intermittent fevers at harvest- 
time; but on the whole, little of a serious nature, nothing 
special to note, unless it be a great deal of scrofula, due, 
no doubt, to the deplorable hygienic conditions of our 
peasant dwellings. Ah! you will find many prejudices 

C 102 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 




to combat, Monsieur Bovary, much obstinacy of rou- 
tine, with which all the efforts of your science will daily 
come into collision; for people still have recourse to 
novenas, to relics, to the priest, rather than come straight 
to the doctor or the chemist. The climate, however, 
is not, truth to tell, bad, and we even have a few nono- 
genarians in our parish. The thermometer (I have 
made some observations) falls in winter to 4 degrees, 
and in the hottest season rises to 25 or 30 degrees Centi- 
grade at the outside, which gives us 24 degrees Reaumur 
as the maximum, or otherwise 54 degrees Fahrenheit 
(English scale), not more. And, as a matter of fact, 
we are sheltered from the north winds by the forest of 
Argueil on the one side, from the west winds by the St. 
Jean range on the other; and this heat, moreover, which, 
on account of the aqueous vapours given off by the river 
and the considerable number of cattle in the fields, 
which, as you know, exhale much ammonia, that is to 
say, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen (no, nitrogen and 
hydrogen alone), and which sucking up into itself the 
humus from the ground, mixing together all those different 
emanations, unites them into a stack, so to say, and 
combining with the electricity diffused through the 
atmosphere, when there is any, might in the long run, 
as in tropical countries, engender insalubrious miasmata, 
— this heat, I say, finds itself perfectly tempered on the 
side whence it comes, or rather whence it should come — 
that is to say, the southern side — by the south-eastern 
winds, which, having cooled themselves passing over the 
Seine, reach us sometimes all at once like breezes from 
Russia.” 

“At any rate, you have some walks in the neighbour- 
C 103] 


MADAME BOVARY 


hood?” continued Madame Bovary, speaking to the 
young man. 

“Oh, very few,” he answered. “There is a place they 
call La Pature, on the top of the hill, on the edge of the 
forest. Sometimes, on Sundays, I go and stay there 
with a book, watching the sunset.” 

“I think there is nothing so admirable as sunsets,” 
she resumed; “but especially by the side of the sea.” 

“Oh, I adore the sea!” said Monsieur Leon. 

“And then, does it not seem to you,” continued 
Madame Bovary, “that the mind travels more freely 
on this limitless expanse, the contemplation of which 
elevates the soul, gives ideas of the infinite, the ideal ? ” 

“It is the same with mountainous landscapes,” con- 
tinued Leon. “A cousin of mine who travelled in 
Switzerland last year told me that one could not picture 
to oneself the poetry of the lakes, the charm of the water- 
falls, the gigantic effect of the glaciers. One sees pines 
of incredible size across torrents, cottages suspended over 
precipices, and, a thousand feet below one, whole valleys 
when the clouds open. Such spectacles must stir to 
enthusiasm, incline to prayer, to ecstasy; and I no 
longer marvel at that celebrated musician who, the 
better to inspire his imagination, was in the habit of 
playing the piano before some imposing site.” 

“You play?” she asked. 

“No, but I am very fond of music,” he replied. 

“Ah! don’t you listen to him, Madame Bovary,” inter- 
rupted Homais, bending over his plate. “That’s sheer 
modesty. Why, my dear fellow, the other day in your 
room you were singing ‘L’Ange Gardien’ ravishingly. I 
heard you from the laboratory. You gave it like an actor.” 

c 104] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Leon, in fact, lodged at the chemist’s, where he had 
a small room on the second floor, overlooking the Place. 
He blushed at the compliment of his landlord, who had 
already turned to the doctor, and was enumerating to 
him, one after the other, all the principal inhabitants of 
Yonville. He was telling anecdotes, giving information; 
the fortune of the notary was not known exactly, and 
“there was the Tuvache household,” who made a good 
deal of show. 

Emma continued, “And what music do you prefer?” 

“Oh, German music; that which makes you dream.” 

“Have you been to the opera?” 

“Not yet; but I shall go next year, when I am living 
at Paris to finish reading for the bar.” 

“As I had the honour of putting it to your husband,” 
said the chemist, “with regard to this poor Yanoda 
who has run away, you will find yourself, thanks to his 
extravagance, in the possession of one of the most com- 
fortable houses of Yonville. Its greatest convenience 
for a doctor is a door giving on the Walk, where one can 
go in and out unseen. Moreover, it contains everything 
that is agreeable in a household — a laundry, kitchen 
with offices, sitting-room, fruit-room, &c. He was a gay 
dog, who didn’t care what he spent. At the end of the 
garden, by the side of the water, he had an arbour built 
just for the purpose of drinking beer in summer; and if 
madame is fond of gardening she will be able — ” 

“My wife doesn’t care about it,” said Charles; “al- 
though she has been advised to take exercise, she prefers 
always sitting in her room reading.” 

“Like me,” replied Leon. “And indeed, what is 
better than to sit by one’s fireside in the evening with a 
C 105 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


book, while the wind beats against the window and the 
lamp is burning? ,, 

“What, indeed?” she said, fixing her large black eyes 
wide open upon him. 

“One thinks of nothing,” he continued; “the hours 
slip by. Motionless we traverse countries we fancy we 
see, and your thought, blending with the fiction, playing 
with the details, follows the outline of the adventures. 
It mingles with the characters, and it seems as if it were 
yourself palpitating beneath their costumes.” 

“That is true! that is true!” she said. 

“Has it ever happened to you,” Leon went on, “to 
come across some vague idea of one’s own in a book, 
some dim image that comes back to you from afar, and 
as the completest expression of your own slightest senti- 
ment?” 

“I have experienced it,” she replied. 

“That is why,” he said, “I especially love the poets. 
I think verse more tender than prose, and that it moves 
far more easily to tears.” 

“Still in the long run it is tiring,” continued Emma. 
“Now I, on the contrary, adore stories that rush breath- 
lessly along, that frighten one. I detest commonplace 
heroes and moderate sentiments, such as there are in 
nature.” 

“In fact,” observed the clerk, “these works, not touch- 
ing the heart, miss, it seems to me, the true end of art. 
It is so sweet, amid all the disenchantments of life, to be 
able to dwell in thought upon noble characters, pure 
affections, and pictures of happiness. For myself, living 
here far from the world, this is my one distraction; 
but Yonville affords so few resources.” 

[ i°6] 


MADAME BOVARY 






“like Tostes, no doubt/’ replied Emma; “and so I 
always subscribed to a lending library.” 

“If madame will do me the honour of making use of 
it,” said the chemist, who had just caught the last words, 
“I have at her disposal a library composed of the best 
authors, Voltaire, Rousseau, Delille, Walter Scott, the 
‘ Echo des Feuilletons’; and in addition I receive various 
periodicals, among them the ‘ Fanal de Rouen ’ daily, hav- 
ing the advantage to be its correspondent for the districts 
of Buchy, Forges, Neufchatel, Yonville, and vicinity.” 

For two hours and a half they had been at table; 
for the servant Artemis, carelessly dragging her old list 
slippers over the flags, brought one plate after the other, 
forgot everything, and constantly left the door of the 
billiard-room half open, so that it beat against the wall 
with its hooks. 

Unconsciously, Leon, while talking, had placed his 
foot on one of the bars of the chair on which Madame 
Bovary was sitting. She wore a small blue silk necktie, 
that kept up like a ruff a gauffered cambric collar, and 
with the movements of her head the lower part of her 
face gently sunk into the linen or came out from it. 
Thus side by side, while Charles and the chemist chatted, 
they entered into one of those vague conversations where 
the hazard of all that is said brings you back to the 
fixed centre of a common sympathy. The Paris theatres, 
titles of novels, new quadrilles, and the world they did 
not know; Tostes, where she had lived, and Yonville, 
where they were; they examined all, talked of every- 
thing till to the end of dinner. 

When coffee was served Felicite went away to get 
ready the room in the new house, and the guests soon 
[ 107] 


MADAME BOVARY 


raised the siege. Madame Lefran^ois was asleep near 
the cinders, while the stable-boy, lantern in hand, was 
waiting to show Monsieur and Madame Bovary the 
way home. Bits of straw stuck in his red hair, and he 
limped with his left leg. When he had taken in his other 
hand the cure’s umbrella, they started. 

The town was asleep; the pillars of the market threw 
great shadows; the earth was all grey as on a summer’s 
night. But as the doctor’s house was only some fifty 
paces from the inn, they had to say good-night almost 
immediately, and the company dispersed. 

As soon as she entered the passage, Emma felt the cold 
of the plaster fall about her shoulders like damp linen. 
The walls were new and the wooden stairs creaked. 
In their bedroom, on the first floor, a whitish light passed 
through the curtainless windows. She could catch 
glimpses of tree-tops, and beyond, the fields, half-drowned 
in the fog that lay reeking in the moonlight along the 
course of the river. In the middle of the room, pell- 
mell, were scattered drawers, bottles, curtain-rods, gilt 
poles, with mattresses on the chairs and basins on the 
ground, — the two men who had brought the furniture 
had left everything about carelessly. 

This was the fourth time that she had slept in a strange 
place. The first was the day of her going to the convent; 
the second, of her arrival at Tostes; the third, at Vau- 
byessard; and this was the fourth. And each one had 
marked, as it were, the inauguration of a new phase in 
her life. She did not believe that things could present 
themselves in the same way in different places, and since 
the portion of her life lived had been bad, no doubt that 
which remained to be lived would be better. 

[ 108] 


Ill 


T HE next day, as she was getting up, she saw the 
clerk on the Place. She had on a dressing-gown. 
He looked up and bowed. She nodded quickly and 
reclosed the window. 

Leon waited all day for six o’clock in the evening to 
come, but on going to the inn, he found no one but 
Monsieur Binet, already at table. The dinner of the 
evening before had been a considerable event for him; 
he had never till then talked for two hours consecutively 
to a “lady.” How then had he been able to explain, 
and in such language, the number of things that he could 
not have said so well before? He was usually shy, and 
maintained that reserve which partakes at once of modesty 
and dissimulation. At Yonville he was considered “well- 
bred.” He listened to the arguments of the older people, 
and did not seem hot about politics — a remarkable 
thing for a young man. Then he had some accomplish- 
ments; he painted in water-colours, could read the key 
of G, and readily talked literature after dinner when he 
did not play cards. Monsieur Homais respected him 
for his education; Madame Homais liked him for his 
good-nature, for he often took the little Homais into the 
garden — little brats who were always dirty, very much 
spoilt, and somewhat lymphatic, like their mother. 
Besides, the servant to look after them, they had Justin, 
the chemist’s apprentice, a second cousin of Monsieur 

C 109] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Homais, who had been taken into the house from charity, 
and who was useful at the same time as a servant. 

The druggist proved the best of neighbours. He gave 
Madame Bovary information as to the tradespeople, 
sent expressly for his own cider merchant, tasted the 
drink himself, and saw that the casks were properly 
placed in the cellar; he explained how to set about 
getting in a supply of butter cheap, and made an arrange- 
ment with Lestiboudois, the sacristan, who, besides his 
sacerdotal and funereal functions, looked after the prin- 
cipal gardens at Yonville by the hour or the year, ac- 
cording to the taste of the customers. 

The need of looking after others was not the only 
thing that urged the chemist to such obsequious cordial- 
ity; there was a plan underneath it all. 

He had infringed the law of the 19th Ventose, year 
xi., article 1, which forbade all persons not having a 
diploma to practise medicine; so that, after certain 
anonymous denunciations, Homais had been summoned 
to Rouen to see the procurer of the king in his own private 
room; the magistrate receiving him standing up, ermine 
on shoulder and cap on head. It was in the morning, 
before the court opened. In the corridors one heard the 
heavy boots of the gendarmes walking past, and like 
a far-off noise great locks that were shut. The druggist’s 
ears tingled as if he were about to have an apoplectic 
stroke; he saw the depths of dungeons, his family in 
tears, his shop sold, all the jars dispersed; and he was 
obliged to enter a cafe and take a glass of rum and seltzer 
to recover his spirits. 

Little by little the memory of this reprimand grew 
fainter, and he continued, as heretofore, to give anodyne 
[no] 


MADAME BOVARY 


consultations in his back-parlour. But the mayor re- 
sented it, his colleagues were jealous, everything was to 
be feared; gaining over Monsieur Bovary by his atten- 
tions was to earn his gratitude, and prevent his speaking 
out later on, should he notice anything. So every morn- 
ing Homais brought him “the paper,” and often in the 
afternoon left his shop for a few moments to have a chat 
with the Doctor. 

Charles was dull : patients did not come. He remained 
seated for hours without speaking, went into his con- 
suiting-room to sleep, or watched his wife sewing. Then 
for diversion he employed himself at home as a work- 
man; he even tried to do up the attic with some paint 
which had been left behind by the painters. But money 
matters worried him. He had spent so much for repairs 
at Tostes, for madame’s toilette, and for the moving, 
that the whole dowry, over three thousand crowns, 
had slipped away in two years. Then how many things 
had been spoilt or lost during their carriage from Tostes 
to Yonville, without counting the plaster cure, who, 
falling out of the coach at an over-severe jolt, had been 
dashed into a thousand fragments on the pavement of 
Quincampoix! 

A pleasanter trouble came to distract him, namely, 
the pregnancy of his wife. As the time of her confine- 
ment approached he cherished her the more. It was 
another bond of the flesh establishing itself, and, as it 
were, a continued sentiment of a more complex union. 
When from afar he saw her languid walk, and her figure 
without stays turning softly on her hips; when opposite 
one another he looked at her at his ease, while she took 
tired poses in her armchair, then his happiness knew 

[in] 


MADAME BOVARY 


no bounds; he got up, embraced her, passed his hands 
over her face, called her little mamma, wanted to make 
her dance, and, half-laughing, half-crying, uttered all 
kinds of caressing pleasantries that came into his head. 
The idea of having begotten a child delighted him. 
Now he wanted nothing. He knew human life from end 
to end, and he sat down to it with serenity. 

Emma at first felt a great astonishment; then was 
anxious to be delivered that she might know what it was 
to be a mother. But not being able to spend as much as 
she would have liked, to have a swing-bassinette with 
rose silk curtains, and embroidered caps, in a fit of bitter- 
ness she gave up looking after the trousseau, and ordered 
the whole of it from a village needlewoman, without 
choosing or discussing anything. Thus she did not 
amuse herself with those preparations that stimulate 
the tenderness of mothers, and so her affection was 
from the very outset, perhaps, to some extent attenuated. 

As Charles, however, spoke of the boy at every meal, 
she soon began to think of him more consecutively. 

She hoped for a son; he would be strong and dark; 
she would call him George; and this idea of having a 
male child was like an expected revenge for all her im- 
potence in the past. A man, at least, is free; he may 
travel over passions and over countries, overcome ob- 
stacles, taste of the most far-away pleasures. But a 
woman is always hampered. At once inert and flexible, 
she has against her the weakness of the flesh and legal 
dependence. Her will, like the veil of her bonnet, 
held by a string, flutters in every wind; there is always 
some desire that draws her, some conventionality that 
restrains. 


[ 112 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


She was confined on a Sunday at about six o’clock, 
as the sun was rising. 

“It is a girl!” said Charles. 

She turned her head away and fainted. 

Madame Homais, as well as Madame Lefran^ois 
of the Lion d’Or, almost immediately came running 
in to embrace her. The chemist, as a man of discretion, 
only offered a few provisional felicitations through the 
half-opened door. He wished to see the child and 
thought it well made. 

Whilst she was getting well she occupied herself much 
in seeking a name for her daughter. First she went over 
all those that have Italian endings, such as Clara, Louisa, 
Amanda, Atala; she liked Galsuinde pretty well, and 
Yseult or Leocadie still better. Charles wanted the 
child to be called after her mother; Emma opposed this. 
They ran over the calendar from end to end, and then 
consulted outsiders. 

“Monsieur Leon,” said the chemist, “with whom I 
was talking about it the other day, wonders you do not 
choose Madeleine. It is very much in fashion just now.” 

But Madame Bovary, senior, cried out loudly against 
this name of a sinner. As to Monsieur Homais, he had 
a preference for all those that recalled some great man, 
an illustrious fact, or a generous idea, and it was on this 
system that he had baptized his four children. Thus 
Napoleon represented glory and Franklin liberty; Irma 
was perhaps a concession to romanticism, but Athalie 
was a homage to the greatest masterpiece of the French 
stage. For his philosophical convictions did not inter- 
fere with his artistic tastes; in him the thinker did not 
stifle the man of sentiment; he could make distinctions, 

[ 113 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


make allowances for imagination and fanaticism. In 
this tragedy, for example, he found fault with the ideas, 
but admired the style; he detested the conception, but 
applauded all the details, and loathed the characters 
while he grew enthusiastic over their dialogue. When 
he read the fine passages he was transported, but when 
he thought that mummers would get something out of 
them for their show, he was disconsolate; and in this con- 
fusion of sentiments in which he was involved he would 
have liked at once to crown Racine with both his hands 
and discuss with him for a good quarter of an hour. 

At last Emma remembered that at the chateau of 
Vaubyessard she had heard the Marchioness call a 
young lady Berthe; from that moment this name was 
chosen; and as old Rouault could not come, Monsieur 
Homais was requested to stand godfather. His gifts 
were all products from his establishment, to wit: six 
boxes of jujubes, a whole jar of racahout, three cakes 
of marshmallow paste, and six sticks of sugar-candy 
into the bargain that he had some across in a cupboard. 
On the evening of the ceremony there was a grand dinner; 
the cure was present; there was much excitement. 
Monsieur Homais towards liqueur-time began singing 
“Le Dieu des bonnes gens.” Monsieur Leon sang a 
barcarolle, and Madame Bovary, senior, who was god- 
mother, a romance of the time of the Empire; finally, 
M. Bovary, senior, insisted on having the child brought 
down, and began baptizing it with a glass of champagne 
that he poured over its head. This mockery of the 
first of the sacraments made the Abbe Bournisien angry; 
old Bovary replied by a quotation from “La Guerre des 
Dieux;” the cure wanted to leave; the ladies implored, 
[ ”4 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Homais interfered; and they succeeded in making the 
priest sit down again, and he quietly went on with the 
half-finished coffee in his saucer. 

Monsieur Bovary, senior, stayed at Yonville a month, 
dazzling the natives by a superb policeman’s cap with 
silver tassels that he wore in the morning when he smoked 
his pipe in the square. Being also in the habit of drink- 
ing a good deal of brandy, he often sent the servant 
to the Lion d’Or to buy him a bottle, which was put 
down to his son’s account, and to perfume his hanker- 
chiefs he used up his daughter-in-law’s whole supply 
of eau-de-cologne. 

The latter did not at all dislike his company. He 
had knocked about the world, he talked about Berlin, 
Vienna, and Strasbourg, of his soldier times, of the mis- 
tresses he had had, the grand luncheons of which he had 
partaken; then he was amiable, and sometimes even, 
either on the stairs, or in the garden, would seize hold of 
her waist, crying, “Charles, look out for yourself.” 

Then Madame Bovary, senior, became alarmed for her 
son’s happiness, and fearing that her husband might in 
the long-run have an immoral influence upon the ideas 
of the young woman, took care to hurry their departure. 
Perhaps she had more serious reasons for uneasiness. 
Monsieur Bovary was not the man to respect anything. 

One day Emma was suddenly seized with the desire 
to see her little girl, who had been put to nurse with the 
carpenter’s wife, and, without looking at the calendar to 
see whether the six weeks of the Virgin were yet passed, 
she set out for the RoIIets’ house, situated at the extreme 
end of the village, between the highroad and the fields. 

It was mid-day, the shutters of the houses were closed, 

[115] 


MADAME BOVARY 


and the slate roofs that glittered beneath the fierce 
light of the blue sky seemed to strike sparks from the 
crest of their gables. A heavy wind was blowing; Emma 
felt weak as she walked; the stones of the pavement 
hurt her; she was doubtful whether she would not go 
home again, or go in somewhere to rest. 

At this moment Monsieur Leon came out from a neigh- 
bouring door with a bundle of papers under his arm. 
He came to greet her, and stood in the shade in front 
of Lheureux’s shop under the projecting grey awning. 

Madame Bovary said she was going to see her baby, 
but that she was beginning to grow tired. 

“If ” said Leon, not daring to go on. 

“Have you any business to attend to?” she asked. 

And on the clerk’s answer, she begged him to accom- 
pany her. That same evening this was known in Yon- 
ville, and Madame Tuvache, the mayor’s wife, declared 
in the presence of her servant that “Madame Bovary 
was compromising herself.” 

To get to the nurse’s it was necessary to turn to the 
left on leaving the street, as if making for the cemetery, 
and to follow between little houses and yards a small 
path bordered with privet hedges. They were in bloom, 
and so were the speedwells, eglantines, thistles, and the 
sweetbriar that sprang up from the thickets. Through 
openings in the hedges one could see into the huts, some 
pigs on a dung-heap, or tethered cows rubbing their 
horns against the trunk of trees. The two, side by side 
walked slowly, she leaning upon him, and he restraining 
his pace, which he regulated by hers; in front of them 
a swarm of midges fluttered, buzzing in the warm air. 

They recognised the house by an old walnut-tree which 

[n6] 


MADAME BOVARY 


shaded it. Low and covered with brown tiles, there 
hung outside it, beneath the dormer-window of the garret, 
a string of onions. Faggots upright against a thorn 
fence surrounded a bed of lettuce, a few square feet of 
lavender, and sweet peas strung on sticks. Dirty water 
was running here and there on the grass, and all round 
were several indefinite rags, knitted stockings, a red 
calico jacket, and a large sheet of coarse linen spread 
over the hedge. At the noise of the gate the nurse 
appeared with a baby she was suckling on one arm. 
With her other hand she was pulling along a poor puny 
little fellow, his face covered with scrofula, the son of 
a Rouen hosier, whom his parents, too taken up with their 
business, left in the country. 

“Go in,” she said; “your little one is there asleep.” 

The room on the ground-floor, the only one in the 
dwelling, had at its farther end, against the wall, a large 
bed without curtains, while a kneading-trough took 
up the side by the window, one pane of which was mended 
with a piece of blue paper. In the corner behind the 
door, shining hob-nailed shoes stood in a row under the 
slab of the washstand, near a bottle of oil with a feather 
stuck in its mouth; a Matthieu Laensberg lay on the dusty 
mantelpiece amid gunflints, candle-ends, and bits of 
amadou. Finally, the last luxury in the apartment was 
a “Fame” blowing her trumpets, a picture cut out, 
no doubt, from some perfumer’s prospectus and nailed 
to the wall with six wooden shoe-pegs. 

Emma’s child was asleep in a wicker-cradle. She took 
it up in the wrapping that enveloped it and began singing 
softly as she rocked herself to and fro. 

Leon walked up and down the room; it seemed strange 

C 117] 


MADAME BOVARY 


to him to see this beautiful woman in her nankeen dress 
in the midst of all this poverty. Madame Bovary red- 
dened; he turned away, thinking perhaps there had been 
an impertinent look in his eyes. Then she put back 
the little girl, who had just been sick over her collar. 
The nurse at once came to dry her, protesting that it 
wouldn’t show. 

“She gives me other doses,” she said: “I am always 
a-washing of her. If you would have the goodness to 
order Camus, the grocer, to let me have a little soap, 
it would really be more convenient for you, as I needn’t 
trouble you then.” 

“Very well! very well!” said Emma. “Good morning, 
Madame RoIIet,” and she went out, wiping her shoes 
at the door. 

The good woman accompanied her to the end of the 
garden, talking all the time of the trouble she had getting 
up of nights. 

“I’m that worn out sometimes as I drop asleep on 
my chair. I’m sure you might at least give me just a 
pound of ground coffee; that’d last me a month, and 
I’d take it of a morning with some milk.” 

After having submitted to her thanks, Madame 
Bovary left. She had gone a little way down the path 
when, at the sound of wooden shoes, she turned round. 
It was the nurse. 

“What is it?” 

Then the peasant woman, taking her aside behind an 
elm tree, began talking to her of her husband, who with 
his trade and six francs a year that the captain 

“Oh, be quick!” said Emma. 

“Well,” the nurse went on, heaving sighs between 

[n8] 


MADAME BOVARY 


each word, “I’m afraid he'll be put out seeing me have 
coffee alone, you know men " 

“But you are to have some," Emma repeated; “I 
will give you some. You bother me!" 

“Oh, dear! my poor, dear lady! you see, in consequence 
of his wounds he has terrible cramps in the chest. He 
even says that cider weakens him.” 

“Do make haste, Mere RoIIet!" 

“Well," the latter continued, making a curtsey, “if 
it weren’t asking too much," and she curtsied once 
more, “if you would" — and her eyes begged — “a 
jar of brandy," she said at last, “and I’d rub your little 
one’s feet with it; they’re as tender as one’s tongue." 

Once rid of the nurse, Emma again took Monsieur 
Leon’s arm. She walked fast for some time, then more 
slowly, and looking straight in front of her, her eyes 
rested on the shoulder of the young man, whose frock- 
coat had a black-velvet collar. His brown hair fell 
over it, straight and carefully arranged. She noticed 
his nails which were longer than one wore them at 
Yonville. It was one of the clerk’s chief occupations 
to trim them, and for this purpose he kept a special 
knife in his writing-desk. 

They returned to Yonville by the water-side. In 
the warm season the bank, wider than at other times, 
showed to their foot the garden wells whence a few steps 
led to the river. It flowed noiselessly, swift, and cold 
to the eye; long, thin grasses huddled together in it as 
the current drove them, and spread themselves upon the 
limpid water like streaming hair; sometimes at the top 
of the reeds or on the leaf of a water-lily an insect with 
fine legs crawled or rested. The sun pierced with a 

c 119] 


MADAME BOVARY 


ray the small blue bubbles of the waves that, breaking, 
followed each other; branchless old willows mirrored 
their grey backs in the water; beyond, all around, the 
meadows seemed empty. It was the dinner-hour at the 
farms, and the young woman and her companion heard 
nothing as they walked but the fall of their steps on the 
earth of the path, the words they spoke, and the sound 
of Emma’s dress rustling round her. 

The walls of the gardens with pieces of bottle on their 
coping were hot as the glass windows of a conservatory. 
Wallflowers had sprung up between the bricks, and with 
the tip of her open sunshade Madame Bovary, as she 
passed, made some of their faded flowers crumble into 
a yellow dust, or a spray of overhanging honeysuckle 
and clematis caught in its fringe and dangled for a mo- 
ment over the silk. 

They were talking of a troupe of Spanish dancers 
who were expected shortly at the Rouen theatre. 

“Are you going?” she asked. 

“ If I can,” he answered. 

Had they nothing else to say to one another? Yet 
their eyes were full of more serious speech, and while 
they forced themselves to find trivial phrases, they felt 
the same languor stealing over them both. It was the 
whisper of the soul, deep, continuous, dominating that of 
their voices. Surprises with wonder at this strange 
sweetness, they did not think of speaking of the sensation 
or of seeking its cause. Coming joys, like tropical shores, 
throw over the immensity before them their inborn 
softness, an odorous wind, and we are lulled by this 
intoxication without a thought of the horizon that we 
do not even know. 


C 120 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 

In one place the ground had been trodden down by the 
cattle; they had to step on large green stones put here 
and there in the mud. She often stopped a moment 
to look where to place her foot, and tottering on the 
stone that shook, her arms outspread, her form bent 
forward with a look of indecision, she would laugh, 
afraid of falling into the puddles of water. 

When they arrived in front of her garden, Madame 
Bovary opened the little gate, ran up the steps and 
disappeared. 

Leon returned to his office. His chief was away; 
he just glanced at the briefs, then cut himself a pen, 
and at last took up his hat and went out. 

He went to La Pature at the top of the Argueil hills 
at the beginning of the forest; he threw himself upon 
the ground under the pines and watched the sky through 
his fingers. 

“How bored I am!” he said to himself, “how bored 
I am!” 

He thought he was to be pitied for living in this village, 
with Homais for a friend and Monsieur Guillaumin for 
master. The latter, entirely absorbed by his business, 
wearing gold-rimmed spectacles and red whiskers over 
a white cravat, understood nothing of mental refine- 
ments, although he affected a stiff English manner, 
which in the beginning had impressed the clerk. 

As to the chemist’s spouse, she was the best wife in 
Normandy, gentle as a sheep, loving her children, her 
father, her mother, her cousins, weeping for others’ 
woes, letting everything go in her household, and detest- 
ing corsets; but so slow of movement, such a bore to 
listen to, so common in appearance, and of such re- 
[ 121 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


stricted conversation, that although she was thirty, 
he only twenty, although they slept in rooms next each 
other and he spoke to her daily, he never thought that 
she might be a woman for another, or that she possessed 
anything else of her sex than the gown. 

And what else was there? Binet, a few shopkeepers, 
two or three publicans, the cure, and, finally, Monsieur 
Tuvache, the mayor, with his two sons, rich, crabbed, 
obtuse persons, who farmed their own lands and had 
feasts among themselves, bigoted to boot, and quite 
unbearable companions. 

But from the general background of all these human 
faces Emma’s stood out isolated and yet farthest off; 
for between her and him he seemed to see a vague abyss. 

In the beginning he had called on her several times 
along with the druggist. Charles had not appeared 
particularly anxious to see him again, and Leon did not 
know what to do between his fear of being indiscreet 
and the desire for an intimacy that seemed almost 
impossible. 


[ 122 ] 


IV 


W HEN the first cold days set in Emma left her 
bedroom for the sitting-room, a long apartment 
with a low ceiling, in which there was on the mantel- 
piece a large bunch of coral spread out against the looking- 
glass. Seated in her arm-chair near the window, she 
could see the villagers pass along the pavement. 

Twice a day Leon went from his office to the Lion 
d’Or. Emma could hear him coming from afar; she 
leant forward listening, and the young man glided past 
the curtain, always dressed in the same way, and without 
turning his head. But in the twilight, when, her chin 
resting on her left hand, she let the embroidery she had 
begun fall on her knees, she often shuddered at the 
apparition of this shadow suddenly gliding past. She 
would get up and order the table to be laid. 

Monsieur Homais called at dinner-time. Skull-cap 
in hand, he came in on tiptoe, in order to disturb no one, 
always repeating the same phrase, “ Good evening, every- 
body.” Then, when he had taken his seat at the table 
between the pair, he asked the doctor about his patients, 
and the latter consulted him as to the probability of 
their payment. Next they talked of “what was in the 
paper.” Homais by this hour knew it almost by heart, 
and he repeated it from end to end, with the reflections 
of the penny-a-liners, and all the stories of individual 
catastrophes that had occurred in France or abroad. 
[ 123 ] r 


MADAME BOVARY 


But the subject becoming exhausted, he was not slow 
in throwing out some remarks on the dishes before him. 
Sometimes even, half-rising, he delicately pointed out 
to madame the tenderest morsel, or turning to the ser- 
vant, gave her some advice on the manipulation of 
stews and the hygiene of seasoning. He talked aroma, 
osmazome, juices, and gelatine in a bewildering manner. 
Moreover, Homais, with his head fuller of recipes than 
his shop of jars, excelled in making all kinds of preserves, 
vinegars, and sweet liqueurs; he knew also all the latest 
inventions in economic stoves, together with the art of 
preserving cheeses and of curing sick wines. 

At eight o’clock Justin came to fetch him to shut up 
the shop. Then Monsieur Homais gave him a sly look, 
especially if Felicite was there, for he half noticed that 
his apprentice was fond of the doctor’s house. 

“The young dog,” he said, “is beginning to have ideas, 
and the devil take me if I don’t believe he’s in love with 
your servant!” 

But a more serious fault with which he reproached 
Justin was his constantly listening to conversation. 
On Sunday, for example, one could not get him out of 
the drawing-room, whither Madame Homais had called 
him to fetch the children, who were falling asleep in the 
arm-chairs, and dragging down with their backs calico 
chair-covers that were too large. 

Not many people came to these soirees at the chemist’s, 
his scandal-mongering and political opinions having 
successfully alienated various respectable persons from 
him. The clerk never failed to be there. As soon as he 
heard the bell he ran to meet Madame Bovary, took her 
shawl, and put away under the shop-counter the thick 
C 124] 


MADAME BOVARY 


list shoes that she wore over her boots when there 
was snow. 

First they played some hands at trente-et-un; next 
Monsieur Homais played ecarte with Emma; Leon 
behind her gave her advice. Standing up with his hands 
on the back of her chair he saw the teeth of her comb 
that bit into her chignon. With every movement that 
she made to throw her cards the right side of her dress 
was drawn up. From her turned-up hair a dark colour 
fell over her back, and growing gradually paler, lost 
itself little by little in the shade. Then her dress fell 
on both sides of her chair, puffing out full of folds, and 
reached the ground. When Leon occasionally felt the 
sole of his boot resting on it, he drew back as if he had 
trodden upon some one. 

When the game of cards was over, the druggist and 
the Doctor played dominoes, and Emma, changing her 
place, leant her elbow on the table, turning over the 
leaves of “ LTIIustration. ,, She had brought her ladies’ 
journal with her. Leon sat down near her; they looked 
at the engravings together, and waited for one another 
at the bottom of the pages. She often begged him to 
read her the verses; Leon declaimed them in a languid 
voice, to which he carefully gave a dying fall in the 
love passages. But the noise of the dominoes annoyed 
him. Monsieur Homais was strong at the game; he 
could beat Charles and give him a double-six. Then the 
three hundred finished, they both stretched themselves 
out in front of the fire, and were soon asleep. The fire 
was dying out in the cinders; the teapot was empty, 
Leon was still reading. Emma listened to him, mechani- 
cally turning round the lampshade, on the gauze of which 
[ '*5 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


were painted clowns in carriages, and tight-rope dancers 
with their balancing-poles. Leon stopped, pointing with 
a gesture to his sleeping audience; then they talked in 
low tones, and their conversation seemed the more 
sweet to them because it was unheard. 

Thus a kind of bond was established between them, 
a constant commerce of books and of romances. Mon- 
sieur Bovary, little given to jealousy, did not trouble 
himself about it. 

On his birthday he received a beautiful phrenological 
head, all marked with figures to the thorax and painted 
blue. This was an attention of the clerk’s. He showed 
him many others, even to doing errands for him at Rouen; 
and the book of a novelist having made the mania for 
cactuses fashionable, Leon bought some for Madame 
Bovary, bringing them back on his knees in the “Hiron- 
delle,” pricking his fingers with their hard hairs. 

She had a board with a balustrade fixed against her 
window to hold the pots. The clerk, too, had his small 
hanging garden; they saw each other tending their 
flowers at their windows. 

Of the windows of the village there was one yet more 
often occupied; for on Sundays from morning to night, 
and every morning when the weather was bright, one 
could see at the dormer-window of a garret the profile 
of Monsieur Binet bending over his lathe, whose monoto- 
nous humming could be heard at the Lion d’Or. 

One evening on coming home Leon found in his room 
a rug in velvet and wool with leaves on a pale ground. 
He called Madame Homais, Monsieur Homais, Justin, 
the children, the cook; he spoke of it to his chief; every 
one wanted to see this rug. Why did the doctor’s wife 
[126] 


MADAME BOVARY 

give the clerk presents? It looked queer. They de- 
cided that she must be his lover. 

He made this seem likely, so ceaselessly did he talk of 
her charms and of her wit; so much so, that Binet once 
roughly answered him — 

“What does it matter to me since I’m not in her set?” 

He tortured himself to find out how he could make his 
declaration to her, and always halting between the fear 
of displeasing her and the shame of being such a coward, 
he wept with discouragement and desire. Then he took 
energetic resolutions, wrote letters that he tore up, put 
it off to times that he again deferred. Often he set out 
with the determination to dare all; but this resolution 
soon deserted him in Emma’s presence, and when Charles, 
dropping in, invited him to jump into his chaise to go 
with him to see some patient in the neighbourhood, 
he at once accepted, bowed to madame, and went out. 
Her husband, was he not something belonging to her? 

As to Emma, she did not ask herself whether she 
loved. Love, she thought, must come suddenly, with 
great outbursts and lightnings, — a hurricane of the 
skies, which falls upon life, revolutionises it, roots up 
the will like a leaf, and sweeps the whole heart into the 
abyss. She did not know that on the terrace of houses 
it makes lakes when the pipes are choked, and she would 
thus have remained in her security when she suddenly 
discovered a rent in the wall of it. 


C 127] 


I T was a Sunday in February, an afternoon when the 
snow was falling. 

They had all, Monsieur and Madame Bovary, Homais, 
and Monsieur Leon, gone to see a yarn-mill that was 
being built in the valley a mile and a half from Yonville. 
The druggist had taken Napoleon and Athalie to give 
them some exercise and, Justin accompanied them, 
carrying the umbrellas on his shoulder. 

Nothing, however, could be less curious than this 
curiosity. A great piece of waste ground, on which 
pell-mell, amid a mass of sand and stones, were a few 
break-wheels, already rusty, surrounded by a quad- 
rangular building pierced by a number of little windows. 
The building was unfinished; the sky could be seen 
through the joists of the roofing. Attached to the 
stop-plank of the gable a bunch of straw mixed with 
corn-ears fluttered its tricoloured ribbons in the wind. 

Homais was talking. He explained to the company 
the future importance of this establishment, computed 
the strength of the floorings, the thickness of the walls, 
and regretted extremely not having a yard-stick such 
as Monsieur Binet possessed for his own special use. 

Emma, who had taken his arm, bent lightly against 
his shoulder, and she looked at the sun’s disc shedding 
afar through the mist his pale . splendour. She turned. 
Charles was there. His cap was drawn down over his 
[128] 


MADAME BOVARY 


eyebrows, and his two thick lips were trembling, which 
added a look of stupidity to his face; his very back, 
his calm back, was irritating to behold, and she saw 
written upon his coat all the platitude of the bearer. 

While she was considering him thus, tasting in her 
irritation a sort of depraved pleasure, Leon made a 
step forward. The cold that made him pale seemed to 
add a more gentle languor to his face; between his 
cravat and his neck the somewhat loose collar of his shirt 
showed the skin; the lobe of his ear looked out from 
beneath a lock of hair, and his large blue eyes, raised 
to the clouds, seemed to Emma more limpid and more 
beautiful than those mountain-lakes where the heavens 
are mirrored. 

“Wretched boy!” suddenly cried the chemist. 

And he ran to his son, who had just precipitated him- 
self into a heap of lime in order to whiten his boots. 
At the reproaches with which he was being overwhelmed 
Napoleon began to roar, while Justin dried his shoes with 
a wisp of straw. But a knife was wanted; Charles 
offered his. 

“Ah!” she said to herself, “he carried a knife in his 
pocket like a peasant.” 

The hoar-frost was falling, and they turned back to 
Yonville. 

In the evening Madame Bovary did not go to her 
neighbour’s, and when Charles had left and she felt 
herself alone, the comparison re-began with the clearness 
of a sensation almost actual, and with that lengthening 
of perspective which memory gives to things. Looking 
from her bed at the clean fire that was burning, she still 
saw, as she had down there, Leon standing up with one 
[ 129] 


MADAME BOVARY 


hand bending his cane, and with the other holding Athalie, 
who was quietly sucking a piece of ice. She thought 
him charming; she could not tear herself away from 
him; she recalled his other attitudes on other days, the 
words he had spoken, the sound of his voice, his whole 
person; and she repeated, pouting out her lips as if for 
a kiss — 

“Yes, charming! charming! Is he not in love?” 
she asked herself; “but with whom? With me?” 

All the proofs arose before her at once; her heart 
leapt. The flame of the fire threw a joyous light upon 
the ceiling; she turned on her back, stretching out her 
arms. 

Then began the eternal lamentation: “Oh, if Heaven 
had but willed it! And why not? What prevented it?” 

When Charles came home at midnight, she seemed to 
have just awakened, and as he made a noise undressing, 
she complained of a headache, then asked carelessly 
what had happened that evening. 

“Monsieur Leon,” he said, “went to his room early.” 

She could not help smiling, and she fell asleep, her 
soul filled with a new delight. 

The next day, at dusk, she received a visit from Mon- 
sieur Lhereux, the draper. He was a man of ability, 
was this shopkeeper. Born a Gascon but bred a Norman, 
he grafted upon his southern volubility the cunning of the 
Cauchois. His fat, flabby, beardless face seemed dyed 
by a decoction of liquorice, and his white hair made even 
more vivid the keen brilliance of his small black eyes. 
No one knew what he had been formerly; a pedlar said 
some, a banker at Routot according to others. What was 
certain was, that he made complex calculations in his 
c 130] 


MADAME BOVARY 

head that would have frightened Binet himself. Polite 
to obsequiousness, he always held himself with his back 
bent in the position of one who bows or who invites. 

After leaving at the door his hat surrounded with 
crape, he put down a green bandbox on the table, and 
began by complaining to madame, with many civilities, 
that he should have remained till that day without 
gaining her confidence. A poor shop like his was not 
made to attract a “fashionable lady;” he emphasized 
the words; yet she had only to command, and he would 
undertake to provide her with anything she might wish, 
either in haberdashery or linen, millinery or fancy goods, 
for he went to town regularly four times a month. He 
was connected with the best houses. You could speak 
of him at the “Trois Freres,” at the “Barbe d’Or,” 
or at the “Grand Sauvage;” all these gentlemen knew 
him as well as the insides of their pockets. To-day, 
then, he had come to show madame, in passing, various 
articles he happened to have, thanks to the most rare 
opportunity. And he pulled out half-a-dozen embroid- 
ered collars from the box. 

Madame Bovary examined them. “I do not require 
anything,” she said. 

Then Monsieur Lheureux delicately exhibited three 
Algerian scarves, several packets of English needles, 
a pair of straw slippers, and, finally, four eggcups in 
cocoanut wood, carved in open work by convicts. Then, 
with both hands on the table, his neck stretched out, 
his figure bent forward, open-mouthed, he watched 
Emma’s look, who was walking up and down undecided 
amid these goods. From time to time, as if to remove 
some dust, he filliped with his nail the silk of the scarves 

[ 131 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


spread out at full length, and they rustled with a little 
noise, making in the green twilight the gold spangles 
of their tissue scintillate like little stars. 

“How much are they?” 

“A mere nothing,” he replied, “a mere nothing. But 
there’s no hurry; whenever it’s convenient. We are 
not Jews.” 

She reflected for a few moments, and ended by again 
declining Monsieur Lheureux’s offer. He replied quite 
unconcernedly — 

“Very well. We shall understand one another by and 
by. I have always got on with ladies — if I didn’t 
with my own!” 

Emma smiled. 

“I wanted to tell you,” he went on good-naturedly, 
after his joke, “that it isn’t the money I should trouble 
about. Why, I could give you some, if need be.” 

She made a gesture of surprise. 

“Ah!” said he quickly and in a low voice, “I shouldn’t 
have to go far to find you some, rely on that.” 

And he began asking after Pere Tellier, the proprietor 
of the “Cafe Frangais,” whom Monsieur Bovary was 
then attending. 

“What’s the matter with Pere Tellier? He coughs 
so that he shakes his whole house, and I’m afraid he’ll 
soon want a deal covering rather than a flannel vest. 
He was such a rake as a young man! Those sort of 
people, madame, have not the least regularity; he’s 
burnt up with brandy. Still it’s sad, all the same, to 
see an acquaintance go off.” 

And while he fastened up his box he discoursed about 
the doctor’s patients. 


C 132 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“It's the weather, no doubt,” he said, looking frown- 
ingly at the floor, “that causes these illnesses. I, too, 
don’t feel the thing. One of these days I shall even 
have to consult the doctor for a pain I have in my back. 
Well, good-bye, Madame Bovary. At your service; 
your very humble servant.” And he closed the door 
gently. 

Emma had her dinner served in her bedroom on a tray 
by the fireside; she was a long time over it; everything 
was well with her. 

“How good I was!” she said to herself, thinking of the 
scarves. 

She heard some steps on the stairs. It was Leon. 
She got up and took from the chest of drawers the first 
pile of dusters to be hemmed. When he came in she 
seemed very busy. 

The conversation languished; Madame Bovary gave 
it up every few minutes, whilst he himself seemed quite 
embarrassed. Seated on a low chair near the fire, he 
turned round in his fingers the ivory thimble-case. She 
stitched on, or from time to time turned down the hem 
of the cloth with her nail. She did not speak; he was 
silent, captivated by her silence, as he would have been 
by her speech. 

“Poor fellow!” she thought. 

“How have I displeased her?” he asked himself. 

At last, however, Leon said that he should have, one 
of these days, to go to Rouen on some office business. 

“Your music subscription is out; am I to renew it?” 

“No,” she replied. 

“Why?” 

“Because ” 


C 133 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


And pursing her lips she slowly drew a long stitch 
of grey thread. 

This work irritated Leon. It seemed to roughen the 
ends of her fingers. A gallant phrase came into his 
head, but he did not risk it. 

“Then you are giving it up?” he went on. 

“What?” she asked hurriedly. “Music? Ah! yes! 
Have I not my house to look after, my husband to attend 
to, a thousand things, in fact, many duties that must 
be considered first?” 

She looked at the clock. Charles was late. Then 
she affected anxiety. Two or three times she even 
repeated, “He is so good!” 

The clerk was fond of Monsieur Bovary. But this 
tenderness on his behalf astonished him unpleasantly; 
nevertheless he took up his praises, which he said every- 
one was singing, especially the chemist. 

“Ah! he is a good fellow,” continued Emma. 

“Certainly,” replied the clerk. 

And he began talking of Madame Homais, whose 
very untidy appearance generally made them laugh. 

“What does it matter?” interrupted Emma. “A 
good housewife does not trouble about her appearance.” 

Then she relapsed into silence. 

It was the same on the following days; her talks, her 
manners, everything changed. She took interest in 
the housework, went to church regularly, and looked 
after her servant with more severity. 

She took Berthe from nurse. When visitors called, 
Felicite brought her in, and Madame Bovary undressed 
her to show off her limbs. She declared she adored 
children; this was her consolation, her joy, her passion, 

[ 134] 


MADAME BOVARY 


and she accompanied her caresses with lyrical outbursts 
which would have reminded anyone but the Yonville 
people of Sachette in “Notre Dame de Paris. ,, 

When Charles came home he found his slippers put 
to warm near the fire. His waistcoat now never wanted 
lining, nor his shirt buttons, and it was quite a pleasure 
to see in the cupboard the night-caps arranged in piles 
of the same height. She no longer grumbled as formerly 
at taking a turn in the garden; what he proposed was 
always done, although she did not understand the wishes 
to which she submitted without a murmur; and when 
Leon saw him by his fireside after dinner, his two hands 
on his stomach, his two feet on the fender, his cheeks 
red with feeding, his eyes moist with happiness, the 
child crawling along the carpet, and this woman with the 
slender waist who came behind his arm-chair to kiss 
his forehead: 

“What madness!” he said to himself. “And how to 
reach her!” 

And thus she seemed so virtuous and inaccessible to 
him that he lost all hope, even the faintest. But by this 
renunciation he placed her on an extraordinary pinnacle. 
To him she stood outside those fleshly attributes from 
which he had nothing to obtain, and in his heart she 
rose ever, and became farther removed from him after 
the magnificent manner of an apotheosis that is taking 
wing. It was one of those pure feelings that do not 
interfere with life, that are cultivated because they are 
rare, and whose loss would afflict more than their passion 
rejoices. 

Emma grew thinner, her cheeks paler, her face longer. 
With her black hair, her large eyes, her aquiline nose, 

C 135 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


her birdlike walk, and always silent now, did she not 
seem to be passing through life scarcely touching it, and 
to bear on her brow the vague impress of some divine 
destiny? She was so sad and so calm, at once so gentle 
and so reserved, that near her one felt oneself seized by 
an icy charm, as we shudder in churches at the perfume 
of the flowers mingling with the cold of the marble. 
The others even did not escape from this seduction. 
The chemist said — 

“She is a woman of great parts, who wouldn’t be 
misplaced in a sub-prefecture.” 

The housewives admired her economy, the patients 
her politeness, the poor her charity. 

But she was eaten up with desires, with rage, with 
hate. That dress with the narrow folds hid a distracted 
heart, of whose torment those chaste lips said nothing. 
She was in love with Leon, and sought solitude that she 
might with the more ease delight in his image. The 
sight of his form troubled the voluptuousness of this 
mediation. Emma thrilled at the sound of his step; 
then in his presence the emotion subsided, and after- 
wards there remained to her only an immense astonish- 
ment that ended in sorrow. 

Leon did not know that when he left her in despair 
she rose after he had gone to see him in the street. She 
concerned herself about his comings and goings; she 
watched his face; she invented quite a history to find 
an excuse for going to his room. The chemist’s wife 
seemed happy to her to sleep under the same roof, and 
her thoughts constantly centred upon this house, like 
the “Lion d’Or” pigeons, who came there to dip their 
red feet and white wings in its gutters. But the more 

[136] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Emma recognised her love, the more she crushed it down, 
that it might not be evident, that she might make it 
less. She would have liked Leon to guess it, and she 
imagined chances, catastrophes that should facilitate 
this. What restrained her was, no doubt, idleness and 
fear, and a sense of shame also. She thought she had 
repulsed him too much, that the time was past, that all 
was lost. Then, pride, the joy of being able to say to 
herself, “I am virtuous,” and to look at herself in the 
glass taking resigned poses, consoled her a little for the 
sacrifice she believed she was making. 

Then the lusts of the flesh, the longing for money, 
and the melancholy of passion all blended themselves 
into one suffering, and instead of turning her thoughts 
from it, she clave to it the more, urging herself to 
pain, and seeking everywhere occasion for it. She 
was irritated by an ill-served dish or by a half-open 
door; bewailed the velvets she had not, the happi- 
ness she had missed, her too exalted dreams, her nar- 
row home. 

What exasperated her was that Charles did not seem 
to notice her anguish. His conviction that he was mak- 
ing her happy seemed to her an imbecile insult, and his 
sureness on this point ingratitude. For whose sake, 
then, was she virtuous? Was it not for him, the ob- 
stacle to all felicity, the cause of all misery, and, as it 
were, the sharp clasp of that complex strap that buckled 
her in on all sides? 

On him alone, then, she concentrated all the various 
hatreds that resulted from her boredom, and every 
effort to diminish only augumented it; for this useless 
trouble was added to the other reasons for despair, 

c 137] 


MADAME BOVARY 


and contributed still more to the separation between 
them. Her own gentleness to herself made her rebel 
against him. Domestic mediocrity drove her to lewd 
fancies, marriage tenderness to adulterous desires. She 
would have liked Charles to beat her, that she might 
have a better right to hate him, to revenge herself 
upon him. She was surprised sometimes at the atro- 
cious conjectures that came into her thoughts, and 
she had to go on smiling, to hear repeated to her at 
all hours that she was happy, to pretend to be happy, 
to let it be believed. 

Yet she had loathing of this hypocrisy. She was 
seized with the temptation to flee somewhere with Leon 
to try a new life; but at once a vague chasm full of dark- 
ness opened within her soul. 

“Besides, he no longer loves me,” she thought. “What 
is to become of me? What help is to be hoped for, 
what consolation, what solace?” 

She was left broken, breathless, inert, sobbing in a 
low voice, with flowing tears. 

“Why don’t you tell master?” the servant asked her 
when she came in during these crises. 

“It is the nerves,” said Emma. “Do not speak to 
him of it; it would worry him.” 

“Ah! yes,” Felicite went on, “you are just like La 
Guerine, Pere Guerin’s daughter, the fisherman at PoIIet, 
that I used to know at Dieppe before I came to you. 
She was so sad, so sad, to see her standing upright on 
the threshold of her house, she seemed to you like a 
winding-sheet spread out before the door. Her illness, 
it appears, was a kind of fog that she had in her head, 
and the doctors could not do anything, nor the priest 

[•38] 


MADAME BOVARY 


either. When she was taken too bad she went off 
quite alone to the sea-shore, so that the customs 
officer, going his rounds, often found her lying flat 
on her face, crying on the shingle. Then, after her 
marriage, it went off, they say.” 

“But with me,” replied Emma, “it was after marriage 
that it began.” 


c 139] 


VI 


O NE evening when the window was open, and she, 
sitting by it, had been watching Lestiboudois, 
the bedale, trimming the box, she suddenly heard the 
Angelus ringing. 

It was the beginning of April, when the primroses are 
in bloom, and a warm wind blows over the flower-beds 
newly turned, and the gardens, like women, seem to be 
getting ready for the summer fetes. Through the 
bars of the arbour and away beyond, the river 
seen in the fields, meandering through the grass in wan- 
dering curves. The evening vapours rose between the 
leafless poplars, touching their outlines with a violet 
tint, paler and more transparent than a subtle gauze 
caught athwart their branches. In the distance cattle 
moved about; neither their steps nor their lowing could 
be heard; and the bell, still ringing through the air, 
kept up its peaceful lamentation. 

With this repeated tinkling the thoughts of the young 
woman lost themselves in old memories of her youth 
and school-days. She remembered the great candle- 
sticks that rose above the vases full of flowers on the 
altar, and the tabernacle with its small columns. She 
would have liked to be once more lost in the long line of 
white veils, marked off here and there by the stiff black 
hoods of the good sisters bending over their prie-Dieu. 
[ 140 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 

At mass on Sundays, when she looked up, she saw the 
gentle face of the Virgin amid the blue smoke of the 
rising incense. Then she was moved; she felt herself 
weak and quite deserted, like the down of a bird whirled 
by the tempest, and it was unconsciously that she went 
towards the church, inclined to no matter what devo- 
tions, so that her soul was absorbed and all existence 
lost in it. 

On the Place she met Lestiboudois on his way back, 
for, in order not to shorten his day’s labour, he preferred 
interrupting his work, then beginning it again, so that 
he rang the Angelus to suit his own convenience. Be- 
sides, the ringing over a little earlier warned the lads of 
catechism hour. 

Already a few who had arrived were playing marbles 
on the stones of the cemetery. Others, astride the 
wall, swung their legs, kicking with their clogs the large 
nettles growing between the little enclosure and the new- 
est graves. This was the only green spot. All the rest 
was but stones, always covered with a fine powder, 
despite the vestry-broom. 

The children in list shoes ran about there as if it were 
an enclosure made for them. The shouts of their voices 
could be heard through the humming of the bell. This 
grew less and less with the swinging of the great rope that, 
hanging from the top of the belfry, dragged its end on 
the ground. Swallows flitted to and fro uttering little 
cries, cut the air with the edge of their wings, and swiftly 
returned to their yellow nests under the tiles of the cop- 
ing. At the end of the church a lamp was burning, the 
wick of a night-light in a glass hung up. Its light from 
a distance looked like a white stain trembling in the 
[ 141 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


oil. A long ray of the sun fell across the nave and seemed 
to darken the lower sides and the corners. 

“ Where is the cure?” asked Madame Bovary of one 
of the lads, who was amusing himself by shaking a swivel 
in a hole too large for it. 

“He is just coming,” he answered. 

And in fact the door of the presbytery grated; Abbe 
Bournisien appeared; the children, pell-mell, fled into 
the church. 

“These young scamps!” murmured the priest, “always 
the same!” Then, picking up a catechism all in rags 
that he had struck with his foot, “They respect nothing!” 
But as soon as he caught sight of Madame Bovary, 
“Excuse me,” he said; “I did not recognise you.” 

He thrust the catechism into his pocket, and stopped 
short, balancing the heavy vestry key between his two 
fingers. 

The light of the setting sun that fell full upon his face 
paled the lasting of his cassock, shiny at the elbows, 
unravelled at the hem. Grease and tobacco stains 
followed along his broad chest the lines of the buttons, 
and grew more numerous the farther they were from his 
neckcloth, in which the massive folds of his red chin 
rested; this was dotted with yellow spots, that dis- 
appeared beneath the coarse hair of his greyish beard. 
He had just dined, and was breathing noisily. 

“How are you?” he added. 

“Not well,” replied Emma; “I am ill.” 

“Well, and so am I,” answered the priest. “These 
first warm days weaken one most remarkably, don’t 
they? But, after all, we are born to suffer, as St. Paul 
says. But what does Monsieur Bovary think of it?” 

C 142 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“He!” she said with a gesture of contempt. 

“What!” replied the good fellow, quite astonished, 
“doesn’t he prescribe something for you?” 

“Ah!” said Emma, “it is no earthly remedy I need.” 

But the cure from time to time looked into the church, 
where the kneeling boys were shouldering one another, 
and tumbling over like packs of cards. 

“I should like to know ” she went on. 

“You look out, Riboudet,” cried the priest in an angry 
voice; “I’ll warm your ears, you imp!” Then turning 
to Emma. “He’s Boudet the carpenter’s son; his 
parents are well off, and let him do just as he pleases. 
Yet he could learn quickly if he would, for he is very 
sharp. And so sometimes for a joke I call him Riboudet 
(like the road one takes to go to Maromme) and I even 
say * Mon Riboudet.’ Ha! ha! ‘ Mont Riboudet.’ The 
other day I repeated that jest to Monsignor, and he 
laughed at it; he condescended to laugh at it. And 
how is Monsieur Bovary?” 

She seemed not to hear him. And he went on — 

“Always very busy, no doubt; for he and I are cer- 
tainly the busiest people in the parish. But he is doctor 
of the body,” he added with a thick laugh, “and I of 
the soul.” 

She fixed her pleading eyes upon the priest. “Yes,” 
she said, “you solace all sorrows.” 

“Ah! don’t talk to me of it, Madame Bovary. This 
morning I had to go to Bas-Diauville for a cow that 
was ill; they thought it was under a spell. All their 
cows, I don’t know how it is — But pardon me ! Longue- 
marre and Boudet! Bless me! will you leave off?” 

And with a bound he ran into the church. 

C 143 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


The boys were just then clustering round the large 
desk, climbing over the precentor’s footstool, opening 
the missal; and others on tiptoe were just about to ven- 
ture into the confessional. But the priest suddenly 
distributed a shower of cuffs among them. Seizing 
them by the collars of their coats, he lifted them from 
the ground, and deposited them on their knees on the 
stones of the choir, firmly, as if he meant planting them 
there. 

“Yes,” said he, when he returned to Emma, unfolding 
his large cotton handkerchief, one corner of which he 
put between his teeth, “farmers are much to be pitied.” 

“Others, too,” she replied. 

“Assuredly. Town-labourers, for example.” 

“It is not they ” 

“Pardon! I’ve there known poor mothers of families, 
virtuous women, I assure you, real saints, who wanted 
even bread.” 

“But those,” replied Emma, and the corners of her 
mouth twitched as she spoke, “those, Monsieur Ie Cure, 
who have bread and have no — ” 

“Fire in the winter,” said the priest. 

“Oh, what does that matter?” 

“What! What does it matter? It seems to me that 
when one has firing and food — for, after all — ” 

“My God! my God!” she sighed. 

“It is indigestion, no doubt? You must get home, 
Madame Bovary; drink a little tea, that will strengthen 
you, or else a glass of fresh water with a little moist 
sugar.” 

“Why?” And she looked like one awaking from a 
dream. 

C 144] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Well, you see, you were putting your hand to your 
forehead. I thought you felt faint.” Then, bethink- 
ing himself, “But you were asking me something? What 
was it? I really don’t remember.” 

“I? Nothing! nothing!” repeated Emma. 

And the glance she cast round her slowly fell upon the 
old man in the cassock. They looked at one another 
face to face without speaking 

“Then, Madame Bovary,” he said at last, “excuse me, 
but duty first, you know; I must look after my good- 
for-nothings. The first communion will soon be upon 
us, and I fear we shall be behind after all. So after 
Ascension Day I keep them recta an extra hour every 
Wednesday. Poor children! One cannot lead them 
too soon into the path of the Lord, as, moreover, he has 
himself recommended us to do by the mouth of his 
Divine Son. Good health to you, madame; my respects 
to your husband.” 

And he went into the church making a genuflexion 
as soon as he reached the door. 

Emma saw him disappear between the double row of 
forms, walking with heavy tread, his head a little bent 
over his shoulder, and with his two hands half-open 
behind him. 

Then she turned on her heel all of one piece, like a 
statue on a pivot, and went homewards. But the loud 
voice of the priest, the clear voices of the boys still 
reached her ears, and went on behind her. 

“Are you a Christian?” 

“Yes, I am a Christian.” 

“What is a Christian?” 

“He who, being baptized — baptized — baptized — ” 

C 145 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


She went up the steps of the staircase holding on to the 
banisters, and when she was in her room threw herself 
into an arm-chair. 

The whitish light of the window-panes fell with soft 
undulations. The furniture in its place seemed to have 
become more immobile, and to lose itself in the shadow 
as in an ocean of darkness. The fire was out, the clock 
went on ticking, and Emma vaguely marvelled at this 
calm of all things while within herself was such tumult. 
But little Berthe was there, between the window and 
the work-table, tottering on her knitted shoes, and 
trying to come to her mother to catch hold of the ends 
of her apron-strings. 

“Leave me alone,” said the latter, putting her from 
her with her hand. 

The little girl soon came up closer against her knees, 
and leaning on them with her arms, she looked up with 
her large blue eyes, while a small thread of pure saliva 
dribbled from her lips on to the silk apron. 

“Leave me alone,” repeated the young woman quite 
irritably. 

Her face frightened the child, who began to scream. 

“Will you leave me alone?” she said, pushing her with 
her elbow. 

Berthe fell at the foot of the drawers against the brass 
handle, cutting her cheek, which began to bleed, against 
it. Madame Bovary sprang to lift her up, broke the bell- 
rope, called for the servant with all her might, and she 
was just going to curse herself when Charles appeared. It 
was the dinner-hour; he had come home. 

“Look, dear!” said Emma, in a calm voice, “the little 
one fell down while she was playing, and has hurt herself.” 

[146] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Charles reassured her; the case was not a serious one, 
and he went for some sticking plaster. 

Madame Bovary did not go downstairs to the dining- 
room; she wished to remain alone to look after the 
child. Then watching her sleep, the little anxiety she 
felt gradually wore off, and she seemed very stupid to 
herself, and very good to have been so worried just now 
at so little. Berthe, in fact, no longer sobbed. Her 
breathing now imperceptibly raised the cotton covering. 
Big tears lay in the corner of the half-closed eyelids, 
through whose lashes one could see two pale sunken 
pupils; the plaster stuck on her cheek drew the skin 
obliquely. 

“It is very strange,” thought Emma, “how ugly this 
child is!” 

When at eleven o’clock Charles came back from the 
chemist’s shop, whither he had gone after dinner to 
return the remainder of the sticking-plaster, he found 
his wife standing by the cradle. 

“I assure you it’s nothing,” he said, kissing her on 
the forehead. “Don’t worry, my poor darling; you 
will make yourself ill.” 

He had stayed a long time at the chemist’s. Although 
he had not seemed much moved, Homais, nevertheless, 
had exerted himself to buoy him up, to “keep up his 
spirits.” Then they had talked of the various dangers 
that threaten childhood, of the carelessness of servants. 
Madame Homais knew something of it, having still 
upon her chest the marks left by a basin full of soup 
that a cook had formerly dropped on her pinafore, and 
her good parents took no end of trouble for her. The 
knives were not sharpened, nor the floors waxed; there 

C 147] 


MADAME BOVARY 


were iron gratings to the windows and strong bars across 
the fireplace; the little Homais, in spite of their spirit, 
could not stir without someone watching them; at the 
slightest cold their father stuffed them with pectorals; 
and until they were turned four they all, without pity, 
had to wear wadded head-protectors. This, it is true, 
was a fancy of Madame Homais*; her husband was 
inwardly afflicted at it. Fearing the possible conse- 
quences of such compression to the intellectual organs, 
he even went so far as to say to her, “Do you want to 
make Caribs or Botocudos of them?” 

Charles, however, had several times tried to interrupt 
the conversation. “ I should like to speak to you,” 
he had whispered in the clerk’s ear, who went upstairs 
in front of him. 

“Can he suspect anything?” Leon asked himself. 
His heart beat, and he racked his brain with surmises. 

At last, Charles, having shut the door, asked him to 
see himself what would be the price at Rouen of a fine 
daguerreotype. It was a sentimental surprise he in- 
tended for his wife, a delicate attention — his portrait 
in a frock-coat. But he wanted first to know “how much 
it would be.” The inquiries would not put Monsieur 
Leon out, since he went to town almost every week. 

Why? Monsieur Homais suspected some “young 
man’s affair” at the bottom of it, an intrigue. But he 
was mistaken. Leon was after no love-making. He 
was sadder than ever, as Madame Lefrangois saw from 
the amount of food he left on his plate. To find out 
more about it she questioned the tax-collector. Binet 
answered roughly that he “wasn’t paid by the police.” 

All the same, his companion seemed very strange to 

[ 148] 


MADAME BOVARV 

him, for Leon often threw himself back in his chair, and 
stretching out his arms, complained vaguely of life. 

“ It’s because you don’t take enough recreation,” 
said the collector. 

“What recreation?” 

“If I were you I’d have a lathe.” 

“But I don’t know how to turn,” answered the clerk. 

“Ah! that’s true,” said the other, rubbing his chin 
with an air of mingled contempt and satisfaction. 

Leon was weary of loving without any result; more- 
over he was beginning to feel that depression caused by 
the repetition of the same kind of life, when no interest 
inspires and no hope sustains it. He was so bored with 
Yonville and its inhabitants, that the sight of certain 
persons, of certain houses, irritated him beyond en- 
durance; and the chemist, good fellow though he was, 
was becoming absolutely unbearable to him. Yet the 
prospect of a new condition of life frightened as much 
as it seduced him. 

This apprehension soon changed into impatience, 
and then Paris from afar sounded its fanfare of masked 
balls with the laugh of grisettes. As he was to finish 
reading there, why not set out at once? What prevented 
him? And he began making home-preparations; he 
arranged his occupations beforehand. He furnished in 
his head an apartment. He would lead an artist’s life 
there! He would take lessons on the guitar! He would 
have a dressing-gown, a Basque cap, blue velvet slippers! 
He even already was admiring two crossed foils over his 
chimney-piece, with a death’s-head on the guitar above 
them. 

The difficulty was the consent of his mother; nothing, 

C 149] 


MADAME BOVARY 


however, seemed more reasonable. Even his employer 
advised him to go to some other chambers where he could 
advance more rapidly. Taking a middle course, then, 
Leon looked for some place as second clerk at Rouen; 
found none, and at last wrote his mother a long letter 
full of details, in which he set forth the reasons for going 
to live at Paris immediately. She consented. 

He did not hurry. Every day for a month Hivert 
carried boxes, valises, parcels for him from Yonville 
to Rouen and from Rouen to Yonville; and when Leon 
had packed up his wardrobe, had his three arm-chairs 
restuffed, bought a stock of neckties, in a word, had made 
more preparations than for a voyage around the world, he 
put it off from week to week, until he received a second 
letter from his mother urging him to leave, since he 
wanted to pass his examination before the vacation. 

When the moment for the farewells had come, Madame 
Homais wept, Justin sobbed; Homais, as a man of 
nerve, concealed his emotion; he wished to carry his 
friend’s overcoat himself as far as the gate of the notary, 
who was taking Leon to Rouen in his carriage. The 
latter had just time to bid farewell to Monsieur Bovary. 

When he reached the head of the stairs he stopped, 
he was so out of breath. As he came in, Madame 
Bovary arose hurriedly. 

“It is I again!” said Leon. 

“I was sure of it!” 

She bit her lips, and a rush of blood flowing under her 
skin made her red from the roots of her hair to the top 
of her collar. She remained standing, leaning with her 
shoulder against the wainscot. 

“The doctor is not here?” he went on. 

[ 150] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“He is out.” She repeated, “He is out.” 

Then there was silence. They looked one at the other 
and their thoughts, confounded in the same agony 
clung close together like two throbbing breasts. 

“I should like to kiss Berthe,” said Leon. 

Emma went down a few steps and called Felicite. 

He threw one long look around him that took in the 
walls, the decorations, the fireplace, as if to penetrate 
everything, carry away everything. But she returned, 
and the servant brought Berthe, who was swinging a 
windmill roof downwards at the end of a string. Leon 
kissed her several times on the neck. 

“Good-bye, poor child! good-bye, dear little one! 
good-bye!” And he gave her back to her mother. 

“Take her away,” she said. 

They remained alone — Madame Bovary, her back 
turned, her face pressed against a window-pane; Leon 
held his cap in his hand, knocking it softly against his 
thigh. 

“It is going to rain,” said Emma. 

“I have a cloak,” he answered. 

“Ah!” 

She turned around, her chin lowered, her forehead bent 
forward. The light fell on it as on a piece of marble, 
to the curve of the eyebrows, without one’s being able 
to guess what Emma was seeing on the horizon or what 
she was thinking within herself. 

“Well, good-bye,” he sighed. 

She raised her head with a quick movement. 

“Yes, good-bye — go!” 

They advanced towards each other; he held out his 
hand; she hesitated. 

[I5i] 


I 


MADAME BOVARY 


“In the English fashion, then,” she said, giving her 
own hand wholly to him, and forcing a laugh. 

Leon felt it between his fingers, and the very essence 
of all his being seemed to pass down into that moist 
palm. Then he opened his hand; their eyes met again, 
and he disappeared. 

When he reached the market-place, he stooped and 
hid behind a pillar to look for the last time at this white 
house with the four green blinds. He thought he saw 
a shadow behind the window in the room; but the 
curtain, sliding along the pole as though no one were 
touching it, slowly opened its long oblique folds, that 
spread out with a single movement, and thus hung 
straight and motionless as a plaster wall. Leon set 
off running. 

From afar he saw his employer’s gig in the road, and 
by it a man in a coarse apron holding the horse. Homais 
and Monsieur Guillaumin were talking. They were 
waiting for him. 

“Embrace me,” said the druggist with tears in his 
eyes. “Here is your coat, my good friend. Mind the 
cold; take care of yourself; look after yourself.” 

“Come, Leon, jump in,” said the notary. 

Homais bent over the splash-board, and in a voice 
broken by sobs uttered these three sad words — 

“A pleasant journey!” 

“Good-night,” said Monsieur Guillaumin. “Give him 
his head.” They set out, and Homais went back. 

Madame Bovary had opened her window overlooking 
the garden and watched the clouds. They gathered 
around the sunset on the side of Rouen, and then swiftly 

[ 152] 


MADAME BOVARY 


rolled back their black columns, behind which the great 
rays of the sun looked out like the golden arrows of a 
suspended trophy, while the rest of the empty heavens 
was white as porcelain. But a gust of wind bowed the 
poplars, and suddenly the rain fell; it pattered against 
the green leaves. Then the sun reappeared, the hens 
clucked, sparrows shook their wings in the damp thickets, 
and the pools of water on the gravel as they flowed 
away carried off the pink flowers of an acacia. 

“Ah! how far off he must be already !” she thought. 

Monsieur Homais, as usual, came at half-past six 
during dinner. 

“Well,” said he, “so we’ve sent off our young friend!” 

“So it seems,” replied the doctor. Then turning on 
his chair; “Any news at home?” 

“ Nothing much. Only my wife was a little moved 
this afternoon. You know women — a nothing upsets 
them, especially my wife. And we should be wrong to 
object to that, since their nervous organization is much 
more malleable than ours.” 

“Poor Leon!” said Charles. “How will he live at 
Paris? Will he get used to it?” 

Madame Bovary sighed. 

“Get along!” said the chemist, smacking his lips. 
“The outings at restaurants, the masked balls, the 
champagne — all that’ll be jolly enough, I assure you.” 

“ I don’t think he’ll go wrong,” objected Bovary. 

“Nor do I,” said Monsieur Homais quickly; “although 
he’ll have to do like the rest for fear of passing for a 
Jesuit. And you don’t know what a life those dogs 
lead in the Latin quarter with actresses. Besides, 
students are thought a great deal of in Paris. Provided 
[ 153 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


they have a few accomplishments, they are received in 
the best society; there are even ladies of the Faubourg 
Saint-Germain who fall in love with them, which sub- 
sequently furnishes them opportunities for making very 
good matches.” 

“But,” said the doctor, “I fear for him that down 
there — ” 

“You are right,” interrupted the chemist; “that is 
the reverse of the medal. And one is constantly obliged 
to keep one’s hand in one’s pocket there. Thus, we will 
suppose you are in a public garden. An individual 
presents himself, well dressed, even wearing an order, 
and whom one would take for a diplomatist. He ap- 
proaches you, he insinuates himself; offers you a pinch 
of snuff, or picks up your hat. Then you become more 
intimate; he takes you to a cafe, invites you to his 
country-house, introduces you, between two drinks, 
to all sorts of people; and three-fourths of the time it’s 
only to plunder your watch or lead you into some per- 
nicious step.” 

“That is true,” said Charles; “but I was thinking 
especially of illnesses — of typhoid fever, for example, 
that attacks students from the provinces.” 

Emma shuddered. 

“Because of the change of regimen,” continued the 
chemist, “and of the perturbation that results therefrom 
in the whole system. And then the water at Paris, 
don’t you know! The dishes at restaurants, all the 
spiced food, end by heating the blood, and are not worth, 
whatever people may say of them, a good soup. For 
my own part, I have always preferred plain living; 
it is more healthy. So when I was studying pharmacy 

[ 154] 


MADAME BOVARY 

at Rouen, I boarded in a boarding-house; I dined with 
the professors/’ 

And thus he went on, expounding his opinions gener- 
ally and his personal likings, until Justin came to fetch 
him for a mulled egg that was wanted, 
t “Not a moment’s peace!” he cried; “always at it! 
I can’t go out for a minute! Like a plough-horse, I 
have always to be moiling and toiling. What drudgery!” 
Then, when he was at the door, “By the way, do you 
know the news?” 

“What news?” 

“That it is very likely,” Homais went on, raising his 
eyebrows and assuming one of his most serious expres- 
sions, “that the agricultural meeting of the Seine-In- 
ferieure will be held this year at Yonville-I’Abbaye. 
The rumour, at all events, is going the round. This 
morning the paper alluded to it. It would be of the ut- 
most importance for our district. But we’II talk it 
over later on. I can see, thank you; Justin has the 
lantern.” 


[ 155 ] 


VII 



'HE next day was a dreary one for Emma. Every- 


1 thing seemed to her enveloped in a black atmosphere 
floating confusedly over the exterior of things, and sor- 
row was engulfed within her soul with soft shrieks such 
as the winter wind makes in ruined castles. It was that 
reverie which we give to things that will not return, 
the lassitude that seizes you after everything was done; 
that pain, in fine, that the interruption of every wonted 
movement, the sudden cessation of any prolonged vi- 
bration, brings on. 

As on the return from Vaubyessard, when the quad- 
rilles were running in her head, she was full of a gloomy 
melancholy, of a numb despair. Leon reappeared, 
taller, handsomer, more charming, more vague. Though 
separated from her, he had not left her; he was there, 
and the walls of the house seemed to hold his shadow. 
She could not detach her eyes from the carpet where 
he had walked, from those empty chairs where he had 
sat. The river still flowed on, and slowly drove its 
ripples along the slippery banks. They had often 
walked there to the murmur of the waves over the moss- 
covered pebbles. How bright the sun had been! What 
happy afternoons they had seen alone in the shade at 
the end of the garden! He read aloud, bareheaded, 
sitting on a footstool of dry sticks; the fresh wind of 
the meadow set trembling the leaves of the book and 


C 156 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


the nasturtiums of the arbour. Ah! he was gone, the 
only charm of her life, the only possible hope of joy. 
Why had she not seized this happiness when it came to 
her? Why not have kept hold of it with both hands, 
with both knees, when it was about to flee from her? 
And she cursed herself for not having loved Leon. She 
thirsted for his lips. The wish took possession of her 
to run after and rejoin him, throw herself into his arms 
and say to him, “It is I; I am yours.” But Emma 
recoiled beforehand at the difficulties of the enterprise, 
and her desires, increased by regret, became only the 
more acute. 

Henceforth the memory of Leon was the centre of her 
boredom; it burnt there more brightly than the fire 
travellers have left on the snow of a Russian steppe. 
She sprang towards him, she pressed against him, she 
stirred carefully the dying embers, sought all around her 
anything that could revive it; and the most distant 
reminiscences, like the most immediate occasions, what 
she experienced as well as what she imagined, her volup- 
tuous desires that were unsatisfied, her projects of hap- 
piness that crackled in the wind like dead boughs, her 
sterile virtue, her lost hopes, the domestic tete-a-tete, — 
she gathered it all up, took everything, and made it all 
serve as fuel for her melancholy. 

The flames, however, subsided, either because the 
supply had exhausted itself, or because it had been piled 
up too much. Love, little by little, was quelled by ab- 
sence; regret stifled beneath habit; and this incendiary 
light that had empurpled her pale sky was overspread 
and faded by degrees. In the supineness of her conscience 
she even took her repugnance towards her husband for 

C 157] 


MADAME BOVARY 


aspirations towards her lover, the burning of hate for 
the warmth of tenderness ; but as the tempest still 
raged, and as passion burnt itself down to the very 
cinders, and no help came, no sun rose, there was night 
on all sides, and she was lost in the terrible cold that 
pierced her. 

Then the evil days of Tostes b%an again. She thought 
herself now far more unhappy; for she had the experi- 
ence of grief, with the certainty that it would not end. 

A woman who had laid on herself such sacrifices could 
well allow herself certain whims. She bought a gothic 
prie-Dieu, and in a month spent fourteen francs on 
lemons for polishing her nails; she wrote to Rouen for 
a blue cashmere gown; she chose one of Lheureux’s 
finest scarves, and wore it knotted around her waist 
over her dressing-gown; and, with closed blinds and a 
book in her hand, she lay stretched out on a couch in 
this garb. 

She often changed her coiffure; she did her hair a la 
Chinoise , in flowing curls, in plaited coils; she parted 
it on one side and rolled it under like a man’s. 

She wanted to learn Italian; she bought dictionaries, 
a grammar, and a supply of white paper. She tried 
serious reading, history, and philosophy. Sometimes 
in the night Charles woke up with a start, thinking he 
was being called to a patient. “I’m coming,” he stam- 
mered; and it was the noise of a match Emma had 
struck to relight the lamp. But her reading fared like 
her piece of embroidery, all of which, only just begun, 
filled her cupboard; she took it up, left it, passed on to 
other books. 

She had attacks in which she could easily have been 

[158] 


MADAME BOVARY 


driven to commit any folly. She maintained one day, 
in opposition to her husband, that she could drink off 
a large glass of brandy, and, as Charles was stupid 
enough to dare her to, she swallowed the brandy to the 
last drop. 

In spite of her vapourish airs (as the housewives of 
Yonville called them), Ijjnma, all the same, never seemed 
gay, and usually she had at the corners of her mouth 
that immobile contraction that puckers the faces of old 
maids, and those of men whose ambition has failed. 
She was pale all over, white as a sheet; the skin of her 
nose was drawn at the nostrils, her eyes looked at you 
vaguely. After discovering three grey hairs on her 
temples, she talked much of her old age. 

She often fainted. One day she even spat blood, and, 
as Charles fussed around her showing his anxiety — 

“Bah!” she answered, “what does it matter?” 

Charles fled to his study and wept there, both his 
elbows on the table, sitting in an arm-chair at his bureau 
under the phrenological head. 

Then he wrote to his mother begging her to come, and 
they had many long consultations together on the sub- 
ject of Emma. 

What should they decide? What was to be done since 
she rejected all medical treatment? 

“Do you know what your wife wants?” replied 
Madame Bovary senior. “She wants to be forced to 
occupy herself with some manual work. If she were 
obliged, like so many others, to earn her living, she 
wouldn’t have these vapours, that come to her from a 
lot of ideas she stuffs into her head, and from the idleness 
in which she lives.” 


[ 159] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Yet she is always busy,” said Charles. 

“Ah! always busy at what? Reading novels, bad 
books, works against religion, and in which they mock 
at priests in speeches taken from Voltaire. But all that 
leads you far astray, my poor child. Anyone who has 
no religion always ends by turning out badly.” 

So it was decided to stop Emma reading novels. The 
enterprise did not seem easy. The good lady undertook 
it. She was, when she passed through Rouen, to go 
herself to the lending-library and represent that Emma 
had discontinued her subscription. Would they not 
have a right to apply to the police if the librarian per- 
sisted all the same in his poisonous trade? 

The farewells of mother and daughter-in-law were 
cold. During the three weeks that they had been to- 
gether they had not exchanged half-a-dozen words 
apart from the inquiries and phrases when they met at 
table and in the evening before going to bed. 

Madame Bovary left on a Wednesday, the market-day 
at Yonville. 

The Place since morning had been blocked by a row 
of carts, which, on end and their shafts in the air, spread 
all along the line of houses from the church to the inn. 
On the other side there were canvas booths, where cotton 
checks, blankets, and woollen stockings were sold, together 
with harness for horses, and packets of blue ribbon, 
whose ends fluttered in the wind. The coarse hardware 
was spread out on the ground between pyramids of eggs 
and hampers of cheeses, from which sticky straw stuck 
out. Near the corn-machines clucking hens passed 
their necks through the bars of flat cages. The people, 
crowding in the same place and unwilling to move thence, 
[ 160] 


MADAME BOVARY 


sometimes threatened to smash the shop-front of the 
chemist. On Wednesdays his shop was never empty, 
and the people pushed in less to buy drugs than for 
consultations, so great was Homais’ reputation in the 
neighbouring villages. His robust aplomb had fasci- 
nated the rustics. They considered him a greater doctor 
than all the doctors. 

Emma was leaning out at the window; she was often 
there. [The window in the provinces replaces the theatre 
and the promenade.] She was amusing herself with watch- 
ing the crowd of boors when she saw a gentleman in a green 
velvet coat. He had on yellow gloves, although he wore 
heavy gaiters; he was coming towards the doctor’s 
house, followed by a peasant walking with bent head 
and quite a thoughtful air. 

“Can I see the doctor?” he asked Justin, who was 
talking on the doorsteps with Felicite, and, taking him 
for a servant of the house, — “Tell him that Monsieur 
Rodolphe Boulanger of La Huchette is here.” 

It was not from territorial vanity that the new arrival 
added “of La Huchette” to his name, but to make him- 
self the better known. La Huchette, in fact, was an 
estate near Yonville, where he had just bought the 
chateau and two farms that he cultivated himself, with- 
out, however, troubling very much about them. He 
lived as a bachelor, and was supposed to have “at least 
fifteen thousand francs a year.” 

Charles came into the room. Monsieur Boulanger 
introduced his man, who wanted to be bled because 
he felt “a tingling all over.” 

“That’ll purge me,” he urged as an objection to all 
reasoning. 


[161] 


MADAME BOVARY 


So Bovary ordered a bandage and a basin, and asked 
Justin to hold it. Then addressing the peasant, who was 
already pale — 

“Don’t be afraid, my lad.” 

“No, no, sir,” said the other; “get on.” 

And with an air of bravado he held out his great arm. 
At the prick of the lancet the blood spurted out, splash- 
ing against the looking-glass. 

“Hold the basin nearer,” exclaimed Charles. 

“Lor!” said the peasant, “one would swear it was 
a little fountain flowing. How red my blood is! That’s 
a good sign, isn’t it?” 

“Sometimes,” answered the doctor, “one feels noth- 
ing at first, and then syncope sets in, and more especially 
with people of strong constitution like this man.” 

At these words the rustic let go the lancet-case he was 
twisting between his fingers. A shudder of his shoulders 
made the chair-back creak. His hat fell off. 

“I thought as much,” said Bovary, pressing his finger 
on the vein. 

The basin was beginning to tremble in Justin’s hands; 
his knees shook, he turned pale. 

“Emma! Emma!” called Charles. 

With one bound she came down the staircase. 

“Some vinegar,” he cried. “O dear! two at once!” 

And in his emotion he could hardly put on the compress. 

“ It is nothing,” said Monsieur Boulanger quietly, 
taking Justin in his arms. He seated him on the table 
with his back resting against the wall. 

Madame Bovary began taking off his cravat. The 
strings of his shirt had got into a knot, and she was for 
some minutes moving her light fingers about the young 
[ 162] 


MADAME BOVARY 


fellow’s neck. Then she poured some vinegar on her 
cambric handkerchief; she moistened his temples with 
little dabs, and then blew upon them softly. The plough- 
man revived, but Justin’s syncope still lasted, and his 
eyeballs disappeared in their pale sclerotics like blue 
flowers in milk. 

“We must hide this from him,” said Charles. 

Madame Bovary took the basin to put it under the 
table. With the movement she made in bending down, 
her dress (it was a summer dress with four flounces, 
yellow, long in the waist and wide in the skirt) spread 
out around her on the flags of the room; and as Emma, 
stooping, staggered a little as she stretched out her arms, 
the stuff here and there gave with the inflections of her 
bust. Then she went to fetch a bottle of water, and 
she was melting some pieces of sugar when the chemist 
arrived. The servant had been to fetch him in the 
tumult. Seeing his pupil’s eyes staring he drew a long 
breath; then going around him he looked at him from 
head to foot. 

“Fool!” he said, “really a little fool! A fool in four 
letters! A phlebotomy’s a big affair, isn’t it! And 
a fellow who isn’t afraid of anything; a kind of squirrel, 
just as he is who climbs to vertiginous heights to shake 
down nuts. Oh, yes! you just talk to me, boast about 
yourself! Here’s a fine fitness for practising pharmacy 
later on; for under serious circumstances you may be 
called before the tribunals in order to enlighten the 
minds of the magistrates, and you would have to keep 
your head then, to reason, show yourself a man, or else 
pass for an imbecile.” 

Justin did not answer. The chemist went on — 

[ 163 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Who asked you to come? You are always pestering 
the doctor and madame. On Wednesday, moreover, 
your presence is indispensable to me. There are now 
twenty people in the shop. I left everything because 
of the interest I take in you. Come, get along! Sharp! 
Wait for me, and keep an eye on the jars.” 

When Justin, who was rearranging his dress, had gone, 
they talked for a little while about fainting-fits. Madame 
Bovary had never fainted. 

“That is extraordinary for a lady,” said Monsieur 
Boulanger; “but some people are very susceptible. 
Thus in a duel, I have seen a second lose consciousness 
at the mere sound of the loading of pistols.” 

“For my part,” said the chemist, “the sight of other 
people’s blood doesn’t affect me at all, but the mere 
thought of my own flowing would make me faint if I 
reflected upon it too much.” 

Monsieur Boulanger, however, dismissed his servant, 
advising him to calm himself, since his fancy was over. 

“It procured me the advantage of making your ac- 
quaintance,” he added, and he looked at Emma as he 
said this. Then he put three francs on the corner of the 
table, bowed negligently, and went out. 

He was soon on the other side of the river (this was his 
way back to La Huchette), and Emma saw him in the 
meadow, walking under the poplars, slackening his 
pace now and then as one who reflects. 

“She is very pretty,” he said to himself; “she is very 
pretty, this doctor’s wife. Fine teeth, black eyes, 
a dainty foot, a figure like a Parisienne’s. Where the 
devil does she come from? Wherever did this fat fellow 
pick her up?” 


[i6 4 ] 


MADAME BOVARV 

Monsieur Rodolphe Boulanger was thirty-four; he 
was of brutal temperament and intelligent perspicacity, 
having, moreover, had much to do with women, and 
knowing them well. This one had seemed pretty to him; 
so he was thinking about her and her husband. 

“I think he is very stupid. She is tired of him, no 
doubt. He has dirty nails, and hasn’t shaved for three 
days. While he is trotting after his patients, she sits 
there botching socks. And she gets bored! She would 
like to live in town and dance polkas every evening. 
Poor little woman! She is gaping after love like a carp 
after water on a kitchen-table. With three words of gal- 
lantry she’d adore one, I’m sure of it. She’d be tender, 
charming. Yes; but how get rid of her afterwards?” 

Then the difficulties of love-making seen in the dis- 
tance made him by contrast think of his mistress. She 
was an actress at Rouen, whom he kept; and when he 
had pondered over this image, with which, even in re- 
membrance, he w^s satiated — 

“Ah! Madame Bovary,” he thought, “is much prettier, 
especially fresher. Virginia is decidedly beginning to grow 
fat. She is so finiky about her pleasures; and, besides, 
she has a mania for prawns.” 

The fields were empty, and around him Rodolphe only 
heard the regular beating of the grass striking against his 
boots, with a cry of the grasshopper hidden at a dis- 
tance among the oats. He again saw Emma in her room, 
dressed as he had seen her, and he undressed her. 

“Oh, I will have her,” he cried, striking a blow with 
his stick at a clod in front of him. And he at once began 
to consider the political part of the enterprise. He 
asked himself — 


C 165 ] 


MADAME BOVA RY 


“Where shall we meet? By what means? We shall 
always be having the brat on our hands, and the servant, 
the neighbours, the husband, all sorts of worries. Pshaw! 
one would lose too much time over it.” 

Then he resumed, “She really has eyes that pierce 
one’s heart like a gimlet. And that pale complexion! 
I adore pale women!” 

When he reached the top of the Argueil hills he had 
made up his mind. “ It’s only finding the opportunities. 
Well, I will call in now and then. I’ll send them veni- 
son, poultry; I’ll have myself bled, if need be. We 
shall become friends; I’ll invite them to my place. By 
Jove!” added he, “there’s the agricultural show coming 
on. She’ll be there. I shall see her. We’II begin boldly, 
for that’s the surest way.” 


[ 1 66 ] 


VIII 


A T last it came, the famous agricultural show. On 
the morning of the solemnity all the inhabitants 
at their doors were chatting over the preparations. 
The pediment of the townhall had been hung with gar- 
lands of ivy; a tent had been erected in a meadow for 
the banquet; and in the middle of the Place, in front 
of the church, a kind of bombarde was to announce the 
arrival of the prefect and the names of the successful 
farmers who had obtained prizes. The National Guard 
of Buchy (there was none at Yonville) had come to 
join the corps of firemen, of whom Binet was captain. 
On that day he wore a collar even higher than usual; 
and, tightly buttoned in his tunic, his figure was so stiff 
and motionless that the whole vital portion of his person 
seemed to have descended into his legs, which rose in 
a cadence of set steps with a single movement. As 
there was some rivalry between the tax-collector and 
the colonel, both, to show off their talents, drilled their 
men separately. One saw the red epaulettes and the 
black breastplates pass and repass alternately; there 
was no end to it, and it constantly began again. There 
had never been such a display of pomp. Several citi- 
zens had scoured their houses the evening before; tri- 
coloured flags hung from half-open windows; all the 
public houses were full; and in the lovely weather the 
starched caps, the golden crosses, and the coloured 

C 167] 


MADAME BOVARY 


neckerchiefs seemed whiter than snow, shone in the 
sun, and relieved with their motley colours the sombre 
monotony of the frock-coats and blue smocks. The 
neighbouring farmers’ wives, when they got off their 
horses, pulled out the long pins that fastened around 
them their dresses, turned up for fear of mud; and the 
husbands, for their part, in order to save their hats, kept 
their handkerchiefs around them, holding one corner be- 
tween their teeth. 

The crowd came into the main street from both ends 
of the village. People poured in from the lanes, the 
alleys, the houses; and from time to time one heard 
knockers banging against doors closing behind women 
with their gloves, who were going out to see the fete. 
What was most admired were two long lamp-stands 
covered with lanterns, that flanked a platform on which 
the authorities were to sit. Besides this there were 
against the four columns of the townhall four kinds of 
poles, each bearing a small standard of greenish cloth, 
embellished with inscriptions in gold letters. On one 
was written, “To Commerce”; on the other, “To Agri- 
culture”; on the third, “To Industry”; and on the 
fourth, “To the Fine Arts.” 

But the jubilation that brightened all faces seemed to 
darken that of Madame Lefran^ois, the innkeeper. 
Standing on her kitchen-steps she muttered to herself, 
“What rubbish! what rubbish! With their canvas 
booth! Do they think the prefect will be glad to dine 
down there under a tent like a gipsy? They call all this 
fussing doing good to the place! Then it wasn’t worth 
while sending to Neufchatel for the keeper of a cookshop! 
And for whom? For cowherds! tatter-de-malions ! ” 

C 1683 


MADAME BOVARY 


The druggist was passing. He had on a frock-coat, 
nankeen trousers, beaver shoes, and, for a wonder, a 
hat with a low crown. 

“Your servant! Excuse me, I am in a hurry.” And 
as the fat widow asked where he was going 

“It seems odd to you, doesn’t it, I who am always 
more cooped up in my laboratory than the man’s rat in 
his cheese.” 

“What cheese?” asked the landlady. 

“Oh, nothing! nothing!” Homais continued. “I merely 
wished to convey to you, Madame Lefran^ois, that I 
usually live at home like a recluse. To-day, however, 
considering the circumstances, it is necessary ” 

“Oh, you’re going down there!” she said contemptu- 
ously. 

“Yes, I am going,” replied the druggist, astonished. 
“Am I not a member of the consulting commission?” 

Mere Lefrangois looked at him for a few moments, and 
ended by saying with a smile — 

“That’s another pair of shoes! But what does agri- 
culture matter to you? Do you understand anything 
about it?” 

“ Certainly I understand it, since I am a druggist, — 
that is to say, a chemist. And the object of chemistry, 
Madame Lefran^ois, being the knowledge of the recipro- 
cal and molecular action of all natural bodies, it follows 
that agriculture is comprised within its domain. And 
in fact, the composition of the manure, the fermentation 
of liquids, the analyses of gases, and the influence of 
miasmata, what, I ask you, is all this, if it isn’t chemistry, 
pure and simple?” 

The landlady did not answer. Homais went on — 

[169] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Do you think that to be an agriculturist it is neces- 
sary to have tilled the earth or fattened fowls oneself? 
It is necessary rather to know the composition of the 
substances in question — the geological strata, the atmos- 
pheric actions, the quality of the soil, the minerals, the 
waters, the density of the different bodies, their capil- 
larity, and what not. And one must be master of all 
the principles of hygiene in order to direct, criticise the 
construction of buildings, the feeding of animals, the 
diet of domestics. And, moreover, Madame Lefran^ois, 
one must know botany, be able to distinguish between 
plants, you understand, which are the wholesome and 
those that are deleterious, which are unproductive and 
which nutritive, if it is well to pull them up here and 
re-sow them there, to propagate some, destroy others; 
in brief, one must keep pace with science by means of 
pamphlets and public papers, be always on the alert 
to find out improvements/’ 

The landlady never took her eyes off the “Cafe Fran- 
$ais” and the chemist went on — 

“Would to God our agriculturists were chemists, or 
that at least they would pay more attention to the 
counsels of science. Thus lately I myself wrote a con- 
siderable tract, a memoir of over seventy-two pages, 
entitled, ‘Cider, its Manufacture and its Effects, together 
with some New Reflections on the Subject,’ that I sent 
to the Agricultural Society of Rouen, and which even 
procured me the honour of being received among its 
members — Section, Agriculture; Class, Pomological. 

Well, if my work had been given to the public ” 

But the druggist stopped, Madame Lefran^ois seemed 
so preoccupied. 

[ 170] 


/ 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Just look at them!” she said. “It’s past comprehen- 
sion! Such a cookshop as that!” And with a shrug 
of the shoulders that stretched out over her breast the 
stitches of her knitted bodice, she pointed with both 
hands at her rival's inn, whence songs were heard issu- 
ing. “Well, it won’t last long,” she added. “ It’ll be over 
before a week.” 

Homais drew back with stupefaction. She came down 
three steps and whispered in his ear — 

“What! you didn’t know it? There is to be an execu- 
tion in next week. It’s Lheureux who is selling him out; 
he has killed him with bills.” 

“What a terrible catastrophe!” cried the druggist, 
who always found expressions in harmony with all im- 
aginable circumstances. 

Then the landlady began telling him the story that 
she had heard from Theodore, Monsieur Guillaumin's 
servant, and although she detested Tellier, she blamed 
Lheureux. He was “a wheedler, a sneak.” 

“There!” she said. “Look at him! he is in the market; 
he is bowing to Madame Bovary, who’s got on a green 
bonnet. Why, she’s taking Monsieur Boulanger’s arm.” 

“Madame Bovary!” exclaimed Homais. “I must 
go at once and pay her my respects. Perhaps she’ll 
be very glad to have a seat in the enclosure under the 
peristyle.” And, without heeding Madame Lefran$ois, 
who was calling him back to tell him more about it, the 
druggist walked off rapidly with a smile on his lips, with 
straight knees, bowing copiously to right and left, and 
taking up much room with the large tails of his frock- 
coat that fluttered behind him in the wind. 

Rodolphe having caught sight of him from afar, hur- 

C 171 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


ried on, but Madame Bovary lost her breath; so he 
walked more slowly, and, smiling at her, said in a rough 
tone — 

“It’s only to get away from that fat fellow, you know, 
the druggist.” She pressed his elbow. 

“What’s the meaning of that?” he asked himself. 
And he looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. 

Her profile was so calm that one could guess nothing 
from it. It stood out in the light from the oval of her 
bonnet, with pale ribbons on it like the leaves of weeds. 
Her eyes with their long curved lashes looked straight 
before her, and though wide open, they seemed slightly 
puckered by the cheek-bones, because of the blood 
pulsing gently under the delicate skin. A pink line ran 
along the partition between her nostrils. Her head was 
bent upon her shoulder, and the pearl tips of her white 
teeth were seen between her lips. 

“Is she making fun of me?” thought Rodolphe. 

Emma’s gesture, however, had only been meant for 
a warning; for Monsieur Lheureux was accompanying 
them, and spoke now and again as if to enter into the 
conversation. 

“What a superb day! Everybody is out! The wind 
is east!” 

And neither Madame Bovary nor Rodolphe answered 
him, whilst at the slightest movement made by them he 
drew near, saying, “I beg your pardon!” and raised his 
hat. 

When they reached the farrier’s house, instead of 
following the road up to the fence, Rodolphe suddenly 
turned down a path, drawing with him Madame Bovary. 
He called out — 


c 172 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Good evening, Monsieur Lheureux! See you again 
presently/’ 

“How you got rid of him!” she said, laughing. 

“Why,” he went on, “allow oneself to be intruded 
upon by others? And as to-day I have the happiness 
of being with you ” 

Emma blushed. He did not finish his sentence. 
Then he talked of the fine weather and of the pleasure 
of walking on the grass. A few daisies had sprung 
up again. 

“Here are some pretty Easter daisies,” he said, “and 
enough of them to furnish oracles to all the amorous 
maids in the place.” He added, “Shall I pick some? 
What do you think?” 

“Are you in love?” she asked, coughing a little. 

“H’m, h’m! who knows?” answered Rodolphe. 

The meadow began to fill, and the housewives hustled 
you with their great umbrellas, their baskets, and their 
babies. One had often to get out of the way of a long 
file of country folk, servant-maids with blue stockings, 
flat shoes, silver rings, and who smelt of milk, when one 
passed close to them. They walked along holding one 
another by the hand, and thus they spread over the 
whole field from the row of open trees to the banquet 
tent. But this was the examination time, and the 
farmers one after the other entered a kind of enclosure 
formed by a long cord supported on sticks. 

The beasts were there, their noses towards the cord, 
and making a confused line with their unequal rumps. 
Drowsy pigs were burrowing in the earth with their 
snouts, calves were bleating, Iambs baaing; the cows, 
on knees folded in, were stretching their bellies on the 

[ 173 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


grass, slowly chewing the cud, and blinking their heavy 
eyelids at the gnats that buzzed round them. Plough- 
men with bare arms were holding by the halter prancing 
stallions that neighed with dilated nostrils looking 
towards the mares. These stood quietly, stretching 
out their heads and flowing manes, while their foals 
rested in their shadow, or now and then came and sucked 
them. And above the long undulation of these crowded 
animals one saw some white mane rising in the wind 
like a wave, or some sharp horns sticking out, and the 
heads of men running about. Apart, outside the en- 
closure, a hundred paces off, was a large black bull, 
muzzled, with an iron ring in its nostrils, and who moved 
no more than if he had been in bronze. A child in rags 
was holding him by a rope. 

Between the two lines the committee-men were walking 
with heavy steps, examining each animal, then consult- 
ing one another in a low voice. One who seemed of 
more importance now and then took notes in a book as 
he walked along. This was the president of the jury, 
Monsieur Derozerays de la Panville. As soon as he 
recognised Rodolphe he came forward quickly, and 
smiling amiably, said — 

“What! Monsieur Boulanger, you are deserting us?” 

Rodolphe protested that he was just coming. But 
when the president had disappeared 

“Ma Joi!" said he, “I shall not go. Your company 
is better than his.” 

And while poking fun at the show, Rodolphe, to move 
about more easily, showed the gendarme his blue card, 
and even stopped now and then in front of some fine 
beast, which Madame Bovary did not at all admire. 

[ 174] 


MADAME BOVARY 


He noticed this, and began jeering at the Yonville ladies 
and their dresses; then he apologised for the negligence 
of his own. He had that incongruity of common and 
elegant in which the habitually vulgar think they see 
the revelation of an eccentric existence, of the perturba- 
tions of sentiment, the tyrannies of art, and always a 
certain contempt for social conventions, that seduces or 
exasperates them. Thus his cambric shirt with plaited 
cuffs was blown out by the wind in the opening of his 
waistcoat of grey ticking, and his broad-striped trousers 
disclosed at the ankle nankeen boots with patent leather 
gaiters. These were so polished that they reflected 
the grass. He trampled on horses’s dung with them, 
one hand in the pocket of his jacket and his straw hat on 
one side. 

“Besides,” added he, “when one lives in the 
country ” 

“It’s waste of time,” said Emma. 

“That is true,” replied Rodolphe. “To think that not 
one of these people is capable of understanding even the 
cut of a coat!” 

Then they talked about provincial mediocrity, of the 
lives it crushed, the illusions lost there. 

“And I too,” said Rodolphe, “am drifting into de- 
pression.” 

“You!” she said in astonishment; “I thought you 
very light-hearted.” 

“Ah! yes. I seem so, because in the midst of the 
world I know how to wear the mask of a scoffer upon 
my face; and yet, how many a time at the sight of a 
cemetery by moonlight have I not asked myself whether 
it were not better to join those sleeping there!” 

C 175 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Oh! and your friends? ” she said. “You do not 
think of them. ,, 

“My friends! What friends? Have I any? Who cares 
for me?” And he accompanied the last words with a 
kind of whistling of the lips. 

But they were obliged to separate from each other 
because of a great pile of chairs that a man was carrying 
behind them. He was so overladen with them that one 
could only see the tips of his wooden shoes and the ends 
of his two outstretched arms. It was Lestiboudois, 
the gravedigger, who was carrying the church chairs 
about amongst the people. Alive to all that concerned 
his interests, he had hit upon this means of turning the 
show to account; and his idea was succeeding, for he no 
longer knew which way to turn. In fact, the villagers, 
who were hot, quarrelled for these seats, whose straw 
smelt of incense, and they leant against the thick backs, 
stained with the wax of candles, with a certain veneration. 

Madame Bovary again took Rodolphe’s arm; he went 
on as if speaking to himself — 

“Yes, I have missed so many things. Always alone! 
Ah! if I had some aim in life, if I had met some love, 
if I had found someone! Oh, how I would have spent all 
the energy of which I am capable, surmounted every- 
thing, overcome everything!” 

“Yet it seems to me,” said Emma, “that you are not 
to be pitied.” 

“Ah! you think so?” said Rodolphe. 

“For, after all,” she went on, “you are free — ” she 
hesitated, “rich — ” 

“Do not mock me,” he replied. 

And she protested that she was not mocking him, 

[i 7 6] 


\ 


MADAME BOVARY 


when the report of a cannon resounded. Immediately 
all began hustling one another pell-mell towards the 
village. 

It was a false alarm. The prefect seemed not to be 
coming, and the members of the jury felt much em- 
barrassed, not knowing if they ought to begin the meet- 
ing or still wait. 

At last at the end of the Place a large hired landau 
appeared, drawn by two thin horses, which a coachman 
in a white hat was whipping lustily. Binet had only 
just time to shout, “Present arms!” and the colonel to 
imitate him. All ran towards the enclosure; everyone 
pushed forward. A few even forgot their collars; but 
the equipage of the prefect seemed to anticipate the 
crowd, and the two yoked jades, trapesing in their har- 
ness, came up at a little trot in front of the peristyle of 
the townhall at the very moment when the National 
Guard and firemen deployed, beating drums and marking 
time. 

“ Present !” shouted Binet. 

“Halt!” shouted the colonel. “Left about, march.” 

And after presenting arms, during which the clang 
of the band, letting loose, rang out like a brass kettle 
rolling downstairs, all the guns were lowered. Then 
was seen stepping down from the carriage a gentleman in 
a short coat with silver braiding, with bald brow, and 
wearing a tuft of hair at the back of his head, of a sallow 
complexion and the most benign appearance. His 
eyes, very large and covered by heavy lids, were half- 
closed to look at the crowd, while at the same time he 
raised his sharp nose, and forced a smile upon his sunken 
mouth. He recognised the mayor by his scarf, and 
[ 177 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


explained to him that the prefect was not able to come. 
He himself was a councillor at the prefecture; then he 
added a few apologies. Monsieur Tuvache answered 
them with compliments; the other confessed himself ner- 
vous; and they remained thus, face to face, their fore- 
heads almost touching, with the members of the jury 
all round, the municipal council, the notable personages, 
the National Guard and the crowd. The councillor 
pressing his little cocked hat to his breast repeated his 
bows, while Tuvache, bent like a bow, also smiled, 
stammered, tried to say something, protested his de- 
votion to the monarchy and the honour that was being 
done to Yonville. 

Hippolyte, the groom from the inn, took the head of the 
horses from the coachman, and, limping along with his 
club-foot, led them to the door of the “Lion d’Or” 
where a number of peasants collected to look at the 
carriage. The drum beat, the howitzer thundered, and 
the gentlemen one by one mounted the platform, where 
they sat down in red utrecht velvet arm-chairs that had 
been lent by Madame Tuvache. 

All these people looked alike. Their fair flabby 
faces, somewhat tanned by the sun, were the colour of 
sweet cider, and their puffy whiskers emerged from stiff 
collars, kept up by white cravats with broad bows. 
All the waistcoats were of velvet, double-breasted; all 
the watches had, at the end of a long ribbon, an oval 
cornelian seal; everyone rested his two hands on his 
thighs, carefully stretching the stride of their trousers, 
whose unsponged glossy cloth shone more brilliantly 
than the leather of their heavy boots. 

The ladies of the company stood at the back under 
[ 178 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 

the vestibule between the pillars, while the common herd 
was opposite, standing up or sitting on chairs. As a 
matter of fact, Lestiboudois had brought thither all 
those that he had moved from the field, and he even 
kept running back every minute to fetch others from the 
church. He caused such confusion with this piece of 
business that one had great difficulty in getting to the 
small steps of the platform. 

“I think,” said Monsieur Lheureux to the chemist, 
who was passing to his place, “that they ought to have 
put up two Venetian masts with something rather severe 
and rich for ornaments; it would have been a very 
pretty effect.” 

“To be sure,” replied Homais; “but what can you ex- 
pect? The mayor took everything on his own shoulders. 
He hasn’t much taste. Poor Tuvache! and he is even 
completely destitute of what is called the genius of art.” 

Rodolphe, meanwhile, with Madame Bovary, had 
gone up to the first floor of the townhall, to the “council- 
room,” and, as it was empty, he declared that they could 
enjoy the sight there more comfortably. He fetched 
three stools from the round table under the bust of the 
monarch, and having carried them to one of the windows, 
they sat down by each other. 

There was commotion on the platform, long whisper- 
ings, much parleying. At last the councillor got up. 
They knew now that his name was Lieuvain, and in the 
crowd the name was passed from one to the other. After 
he had collated a few pages, and bent over them to see 
better, he began — 

“Gentlemen! May I be permitted first of all (before 
addressing you on the object of our meeting to-day, 

C 179] 


MADAME BOVARY 


and this sentiment will, I am sure, be shared by you 
all), may I be permitted, I say, to pay a tribute to 
the higher administration, to the government, to the 
monarch, gentlemen, our sovereign, to that beloved 
king, to whom no branch of public or private pros- 
perity is a matter of indifference, and who directs 
with a hand at once so firm and wise the chariot 
of the state amid the incessant perils of a stormy sea, 
knowing, moreover, how to make peace respected as 
well as war, industry, commerce, agriculture, and the 
fine arts.” 

“ I ought,” said Rodolphe, “to get back a little further.” 

“Why?” said Emma. 

But at this moment the voice of the councillor rose 
to an extraordinary pitch. He declaimed — 

“This is no longer the time, gentlemen, when civil 
discord ensanguined our public places, when the landlord, 
the business-man, the working-man himself, falling asleep 
at night, lying down to peaceful sleep, trembled lest he 
should be awakened suddenly by the noise of incendiary 
tocsins, when the most subversive doctrines audaciously 
sapped foundations.” 

“Well, someone down there might see me,” Rodolphe 
resumed, “then I should have to invent excuses for a 
fortnight; and with my bad reputation ” 

“Oh, you are slandering yourself,” said Emma. 

“No! It is dreadful, I assure you.” 

“But, gentlemen,” continued the councillor, “if, 
banishing from my memory the remembrance of these 
sad pictures, I carry my eyes back to the actual situation 
[180] 


MADAME BOVARY 


of our dear country, what do I see there? Everywhere 
commerce and the arts are flourishing; everywhere new 
means of communication, like so many new arteries in 
the body of the state, establish within it new relations. 
Our great industrial centres have recovered all their 
activity; religion, more consolidated, smiles in all hearts; 
our ports are full, confidence is born again, and France 
breathes once more!” 

“Besides,” added Rodolphe, “perhaps from the world’s 
point of view they are right.” 

“How so?” she asked. 

“What!” said he. “Do you not know that there are 
souls constantly tormented? They need by turns to 
dream and to act, the purest passions and the most 
turbulent joys, and thus they fling themselves into all 
sorts of fantasies, of follies.” 

Then she looked at him as one looks at a traveller who 
has voyaged over strange lands, and went on — 

“We have not even this distraction, we poor women!” 

“A sad distraction, for happiness isn’t found in it.” 

“ But is it ever found? ” she asked. 

“Yes; one day it comes,” he answered. 

“And this is what you have understood,” said the 
councillor. “You, farmers, agricultural labourers! you 
pacific pioneers of a work that belongs wholly to civili- 
sation! you, men of progress and morality, you have 
understood, I say, that political storms are even more 
redoubtable than atmospheric disturbances!” 

“It comes one day,” repeated Rodolphe, “one day 
suddenly, and when one is despairing of it. Then the 

C 181 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


horizon expands; it is as if a voice cried, ‘It is here!* 
You feel the need of confiding the whole of your life, 
of giving everything, sacrificing everything to this being. 
There is no need for explanations; they understand one 
another. They have seen each other in dreams!” (And 
he looked at her.) “In fine, here it is, this treasure so 
sought after, here before you. It glitters, it flashes; 
yet one still doubts, one does not believe it; one re- 
mains dazzled, as if one went out from darkness into 
light.” 

And as he ended Rodolphe suited the action to the 
word. He passed his hand over his face, like a man 
seized with giddiness. Then he let it fall on Emma’s. 
She took hers away. 

“And who would be surprised at it, gentlemen? He 
only who is so blind, so plunged (I do not fear to say 
it), so plunged in the prejudices of another age as still 
to misunderstand the spirit of agricultural populations. 
Where, indeed, is to be found more patriotism than in 
the country, greater devotion to the public welfare, more 
intelligence, in a word? And, gentlemen, I do not mean 
that superficial intelligence, vain ornament of idle minds, 
but rather that profound and balanced intelligence that 
applies itself above all else to useful objects, thus con- 
tributing to the good of all, to the common amelioration 
and to the support of the state, born of respect for law 
and the practice of duty ” 

“Ah! again!” said Rodolphe. “Always ‘duty.’ I 
am sick of the word. They are a lot of old blockheads 
in flannel vests and of old women with foot-warmers and 
[182] 


MADAME BOVARY 


soraries who constantly drone into our ears ‘Duty, 
duty!’ Ah! by Jove! one’s duty is to feel what is great, 
cherish the beautiful, and not accept all the conventions 
of society with the ignominy that it imposes upon us.” 

“Yet — yet ” objected Madame Bovary. 

“No, no! Why cry out against the passions? Are 
they not the one beautiful thing on the earth, the source 
of heroism, of enthusiasm, of poetry, music, the arts, 
of everything, in a word?” 

“But one must,” said Emma, “to some extent bow 
to the opinion of the world and accept its moral code.” 

“Ah! but there are two,” he replied. “The small, 
the conventional, that of men, that which constantly 
changes, that brays out so loudly, that makes such a 
commotion here below, of the earth earthly, like the mass 
of imbeciles you see down there. But the other, the 
eternal, that is about us and above, like the landscape 
that surrounds us, and the blue heavens that give us 

light.” 

Monsieur Lieu vain had just wiped his mouth with a 
pocket-handkerchief. He continued — 

“And what should I do here, gentlemen, pointing 
out to you the uses of agriculture? Who supplies our 
wants? Who provides our means of subsistence? Is 
it not the agriculturist? The agriculturist, gentlemen, 
who, sowing with laborious hand the fertile furrows of 
the country, brings forth the corn, which, being ground, 
is made into a powder by means of ingenious machinery, 
comes out thence under the name of flour, and from 
there, transported to our cities, is soon delivered at the 
baker’s, who makes it into food for poor and rich alike. 
Again, is it not the agriculturist who fattens, for our 

[183] 


MADAME BOVARY 


clothes, his abundant flocks in the pastures? For how 
should we clothe ourselves, how nourish ourselves, with- 
out the agriculturist? And, gentlemen, is it even neces- 
sary to go so far for examples? Who has not frequently 
reflected on all the momentous things that we get out 
of that modest animal, the ornament of poultry-yards, 
that provides us at once with a soft pillow for our bed, 
with succulent flesh for our tables, and eggs? But I 
should never end if I were to enumerate one after the 
other all the different products which the earth, well 
cultivated, like a generous mother, lavishes upon her 
children. Here it is the vine, elsewhere the apple tree 
for cider, there colza, farther on cheeses and flax. Gentle- 
men, let us not forget flax, which has made such great 
strides of late years, and to which I will more particularly 
call your attention.” 

He had no need to call it, for all the mouths of the 
multitude were wide open, as if to drink in his words. 
Tuvache by his side listened to him with staring eyes. 
Monsieur Derozerays from time to time softly closed 
his eyelids, and farther on the chemist, with his son 
Napoleon between his knees, put his hand behind his 
ear in order not to lose a syllable. The chins of the 
other members of the jury went slowly up and down 
in their waistcoats in sign of approval. The firemen 
at the foot of the platform rested on their bayonets; 
and Binet, motionless, stood with out-turned elbows, the 
point of his sabre in the air. Perhaps he could hear, 
but certainly he could see nothing, because of the visor 
of his helmet, that fell down on his nose. His lieutenant, 
the youngest son of Monsieur Tuvache, had a bigger 
one, for his was enormous, and shook on his head, and 
[184] 


MADAME BOVARY 


from it an end of his cotton scarf peeped out. He smiled 
beneath it with a perfectly infantine sweetness, and 
his pale little face, whence drops were running, wore 
an expression of enjoyment and sleepiness. 

The square as far as the houses was crowded with 
people. One saw folk leaning on their elbows at all the 
windows, others standing at doors, and Justin, in front 
of the chemist’s shop, seemed quite transfixed by the 
sight of what he was looking at. In spite of the silence 
Monsieur Lieuvain’s voice was lost in the air. It reached 
you in fragments of phrases, and interrupted here and 
there by the creaking of chairs in the crowd; then you 
suddenly heard the long bellowing of an ox, or else the 
bleating of the Iambs, who answered one another at 
street corners. In fact, the cowherds and shepherds 
had driven their beasts thus far, and these lowed from 
time to time, while with their tongues they tore down 
some scrap of foliage that hung above their mouths. 

Rodolphe had drawn nearer to Emma, and said to 
her in a low voice, speaking rapidly — 

“Does not this conspiracy of the world revolt you? 
Is there a single sentiment it does not condemn? The 
noblest instincts, the purest sympathies are persecuted, 
slandered; and if at length two poor souls do meet, 
all is so organised that they cannot blend together. 
Yet they will make the attempt; they will flutter their 
wings; they will call upon each other. Oh! no matter. 
Sooner or later, in six months, ten years, they will come 
together, will love; for fate has decreed it, and they are 
born one for the other.” 

His arms were folded across his knees, and thus lifting 
his face towards Emma, close by her, he looked fixedly 

[185] 


MADAME BOVARY 


at her. She noticed in his eyes small golden lines radi- 
ating from black pupils; she even smelt the perfume of 
the pomade that made his hair glossy. Then a faint- 
ness came over her; she recalled the Viscount who had 
waltzed with her at Vaubyessard, and his beard exhaled 
like this air an odour of vanilla and citron, and mechani- 
cally she half-closed her eyes the better to breathe it in. 
But in making this movement, as she leant back in her 
chair, she saw in the distance, right on the line of the 
horizon, the old diligence the “Hirondelle,” that was 
slowly descending the hill of Leux, dragging after it a 
long trail of dust. It was in this yellow carriage that 
Leon had so often come back to her, and by this route 
down there that he had gone for ever. She fancied she 
saw him opposite at his window; then all grew confused; 
clouds gathered; it seemed to her that she was again 
turning in the waltz under the light of the lustres on the 
arm of the Viscount, and that Leon was not far away, 
that he was coming; and yet all the time she was con- 
scious of the scent of Rodolphe’s head by her side. This 
sweetness of sensation pierced through her old desires, 
and these, like grains of sand under a gust of wind, 
eddied to and fro in the subtle breath of the perfume 
which suffused her soul. She opened wide her nostrils 
several times to drink in the freshness of the ivy round 
the capitals. She took off her gloves, she wiped her 
hands, then fanned her face with her handkerchief, 
while athwart the throbbing of her temples she heard the 
murmur of the crowd and the voice of the councillor 
intoning his phrases. He said — 

“Continue, persevere; listen neither to the suggestions 

[ 1 86 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


of routine, nor to the over-hasty councils of a rash em- 
piricism. Appy yourselves, above all, to the amelioration 
of the soil, to good manures, to the development of the 
equine, bovine, ovine, and porcine races. Let these 
shows be to you pacific arenas, where the victor in leav- 
ing it will hold forth a hand to the vanquished, and will 
fraternise with him in the hope of better success. And 
you, aged servants, humble domestics, whose hard labour 
no Government up to this day has taken into considera- 
tion, come hither to receive the reward of your silent vir- 
tues, and be assured that the state henceforward has its 
eye upon you ; that it encourages you, protects you ; that 
it will accede to your just demands, and alleviate as much 
as in it lies the burden of your painful sacrifices.” 

Monsieur Lieu vain then sat down; Monsieur Deroze- 
rays got up, beginning another speech. His was not 
perhaps so florid as that of the councillor, but it recom- 
mended itself by a more direct style, that is to say, by 
more special knowledge and more elevated considerations. 
Thus the praise of the Government took up less space 
in it; religion and agriculture more. He showed in it 
the relations of these two, and how they had always 
contributed to civilisation. Rodolphe with Madame 
Bovary was talking dreams, presentiments, magnetism. 
Going back to the cradle of society, the orator painted 
those fierce times when men lived on acorns in the heart 
of woods. Then they had left off the skins of beasts, 
had put on cloth, tilled the soil, planted the vine. Was 
this a good, and in this discovery was there not more 
of injury than of gain? Monsieur Derozerays set him- 
self this problem. ^ From magnetism little by little Ro- 
[i87] 


MADAME BOVARY 


dolphe had come to affinities, and while the president 
was citing Cincinnatus and his plough, Diocletian plant- 
ing his cabbages, and the Emperors of China inaugurating 
the year by the sowing of seed, the young man was 
explaining to the young woman that these irresistible 
attractions find their cause in some previous state of 
existence. 

“Thus we,” he said, “why did we come to know one 
another? What chance willed it? It was because 
across the infinite, like two streams that flow but to 
unite, our special bents of mind had driven us towards 
each other.” 

And he seized her hand; she did not withdraw it. 

“For good farming generally !” cried the president. 

“Just now, for example, when I went to your house.” 

“To Monsieur Bizat of Quincampoix.” 

“Did I know I should accompany you?” 

“Seventy francs.” 

“A hundred times I wished to go; and I followed you 
— I remained.” 

“Manures!” 

“And I shall remain to-night, to-morrow, all other 
days, all my life!” 

“To Monsieur Caron of Argueil, a gold medal!” 

“For I have never in the society of any other person 
found so complete a charm.” 

“To Monsieur Bain of Givry-Saint-Martin.” 

“And I shall carry away with me the remembrance 
of you.” 

“For a merino ram!” 

“But you will forget me; I shall pass away like a 
shadow.” 

C 188] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“To Monsieur Belot of Notre-Dame.” 

“Oh, no! I shall be something in your thought, in 
your life, shall I not?” 

“Porcine race; prizes — equal, to Messrs. Leherisse 
and CuIIembourg, sixty francs!” 

Rodolphe was pressing her hand, and he felt it all warm 
and quivering like a captive dove that wants to fly 
away; but, whether she was trying to take it away or 
whether she was answering his pressure, she made a 
movement with her fingers. He exclaimed — 

“Oh, I thank you! You do not repulse me! You 
are good! You understand that I am yours! Let me 
look at you; let me contemplate you!” 

A gust of wind that blew in at the window ruffled 
the cloth on the table, and in the square below all the 
great caps of the peasant women were uplifted by it 
like the wings of white butterflies fluttering. 

“Use of oil-cakes,” continued the president. He was 
hurrying on: “ Flemish manure — flax-growing — drain- 
age — long leases — domestic service.” 

Rodolphe was no longer speaking. They looked at 
one another. A supreme desire made their dry lips 
tremble, and wearily, without an effort, their fingers 
intertwined. 

“Catherine Nicaise Elizabeth Leroux, of Sassetot- 
Ia-Guerriere, for fifty-four years of service at the same 
farm, a silver medal — value, twenty-five francs!” 

“Where is Catherine Leroux?” repeated the councillor. 

She did not present herself, and one could hear voices 
whispering — 

“Go up!” 

“Don’t be afraid!” 


[189] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Oh, how stupid she is!” 

“Well, is she there?” cried Tuvache. 

“Yes; here she is.” 

“Then let her come up!” 

Then there came forward on the platform a little old 
woman with timid bearing, who seemed to shrink within 
her poor clothes. On her feet she wore heavy wooden 
clogs, and from her hips hung a large blue apron. Her 
pale face framed in a borderless cap was more wrinkled 
than a withered russet apple. And from the sleeves 
of her red jacket looked out two large hands with knotty 
joints, the dust of barns, the potash of washing the grease 
of wools had so encrusted, roughened, hardened these 
that they seemed dirty, although they had been rinsed 
in clear water; and by dint of long service they remained 
half open, as if to bear humble witness for themselves of 
so much suffering endured. Something of monastic rigid- 
ity dignified her face. Nothing of sadness or of emotion 
weakened that pale look. In her constant living with ani- 
mals she had caught their dumbness and their calm. It 
was the first time that she found herself in the midst of 
so large a company, and inwardly scared by the flags, the 
drums, the gentlemen in frock-coats, and the order of the 
councillor, she stood motionless, not knowing whether to 
advance or run away, nor why the crowd was pushing her 
and the jury were smiling at her. Thus stood before these 
radiant bourgeois this half-century of servitude. 

“Approach, venerable Catherine Nicaise Elizabeth 
Leroux!” said the councillor, who had taken the list 
of prize-winners from the president; and, looking at 
the piece of paper and the old woman by turns, he re- 
peated in a fatherly tone — 

[ ' 9 ° ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


‘‘Approach! approach !” 

“Are you deaf?” said Tuvache, fidgeting in his arm- 
chair; and he began shouting in her ear, “Fifty-four 
years of service. A silver medal! Twenty-five francs! 
For you!” 

Then, when she had her medal, she looked at it, and 
a smile of beatitude spread over her face; and as she 
walked away they could hear her muttering — 

“I’ll give it to our cure up home, to say some masses 
for me!” 

“What fanaticism!” exclaimed the chemist, leaning 
across to the notary. 

The meeting was over, the crowd dispersed, and now 
that the speeches had been read, each one fell back into 
his place again, and everything into the old grooves; 
the masters bullied the servants, and these struck the 
animals, indolent victors, going back to the stalls, a 
green crown on their horns. 

The National Guards, however, had gone up to the 
first floor of the townhall with buns spitted on their 
bayonets, and the drummer of the battalion carried a 
basket with bottjes. Madame Bovary took Rodolphe’s 
arm; he saw her home; they separated at her door; 
then he walked about alone in the meadow while he 
waited for the time of the banquet. 

The feast was long, noisy, ill served; the guests were 
so crowded that they could hardly move their elbows; 
and the narrow planks used for forms almost broke down 
under their weight. They ate hugely. Each one stuffed 
himself on his own account. Sweat stood on every brow, 
and a whitish steam, like the vapour of a stream on an 
autumn morning, floated above the table between the 
[ l 9 l ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


hanging lamps. Rodolphe, leaning against the calico 
of the tent, was thinking so earnestly of Emma that he 
heard nothing. Behind him on the grass the servants 
were piling up the dirty plates, his neighbours were 
talking; he did not answer them; they filled his glass, 
and there was silence in his thoughts in spite of the 
growing noise. He was dreaming of what she had said, 
of the line of her lips; her face, as in a magic mirror, 
shone on the plates of the shakos, the folds of her gown 
fell along the walls, and days of love unrolled to all 
infinity before him in the vistas of the future. 

He saw her again in the evening during the fireworks, 
but she was with her husband, Madame Homais, and 
the druggist, who was worrying about the danger of 
stray rockets, and every moment he left the company 
to go and give some advice to Binet. 

The pyrotechnic pieces sent to Monsieur Tuvache had, 
through an excess of caution, been shut up in his cellar, 
and so the damp powder would not light, and the principal 
set piece, that was to represent a dragon biting his tail, 
failed completely. Now and then a meagre Roman- 
candle went off; then the gaping crowd sent up a shout 
that mingled with the cry of the women, whose waists 
were being squeezed in the darkness. Emma silently 
nestled against Charles’s shoulder; then, raising her 
chin, she watched the luminous rays of the rockets 
against the dark sky. Rodolphe gazed at her in the 
light of the burning lanterns. 

They went out one by one. The stars shone out. 
A few drops of rain began to fall. She knotted her 
fichu round her bare head. 

At this moment the councillor’s carriage came out 

[ 192] 


MADAME BOVARY 


from the inn. His coachman, who was drunk, suddenly 
dozed off, and one could see from the distance, above the 
hood, between the two lanterns, the mass of his body, 
that swayed from right to left with the giving of the 
traces. 

“Truly,” said the druggist, “one ought to proceed 
most rigorously against drunkenness! I should like to 
see written up weekly at the door of the townhall on a 
board ad hoc the names of all those who during the week 
got intoxicated on alcohol. Besides, with regard to 
statistics, one would thus have, as it were, public records 
that one could refer to in case of need. But excuse me!” 

And he once more ran off to the captain. The latter 
was going back to see his lathe again. 

§&.“ Perhaps you would not do ill,” Homais said to him, 
“to send one of your men, or to go yourself ” 

“Leave me alone!” answered the tax-collector. “It’s 
all right!” 

“Do not be uneasy,” said the druggist, when he re- 
turned to his friends. “Monsieur Binet has assured me 
that all precautions have been taken. No sparks have 
fallen; the pumps are full. Let us go to rest.” 

“Ma foil I want it,” said Madame Homais, yawning 
at large. “But never mind; we’ve had a beautiful 
day for our fete.” 

Rodolphe repeated in a low voice, and with a tender 
look, “Oh, yes! very beautiful!” 

And having bowed to one another, they separated. 

Two days later, in the “Fanal de Rouen,” there was 
a long article on the show. Homais had composed it 
with verve the very next morning. 

“Why these festoons, these flowers, these garlands? 

C 193 ] 


MADAME BOVARV 


Whither hurries this crowd like the waves of a furious 
sea under the torrents of a tropical sun pouring its heat 
upon our heads?” 

Then he spoke of the condition of the peasants. Cer- 
tainly the Government was doing much, but not enough. 
“Courage!” he cried to it; “a thousand reforms are 
indispensable; let us accomplish them!” Then touching 
on the entry of the councillor, he did not forget “the 
martial air of our militia,” nor “our most merry village 
maidens,” nor the “bald-headed old men like patriarchs 
who were there, and of whom some, the remnants of our 
phalanxes, still felt their hearts beat at the manly sound 
of the drums.” He cited himself among the first of the 
members of the jury, and he even called attention in a 
note to the fact that Monsieur Homais, chemist, had 
sent a memoir on cider to the agricultural society. When 
he came to the distribution of the prizes, he painted the 
joy of the prize-winners in dithyrambic strophes. “The 
lather embraced the son, the brother the brother, the 
husband his consort. More than one showed his humble 
medal with pride; and no doubt when he got home to 
his good housewife, he hung it up weeping on the modest 
walls of his cot. 

“About six o’clock a banquet prepared in the meadow 
of Monsieur Leigeard brought together the principal 
personages of the fete. The greatest cordiality reigned 
here. Divers toasts were proposed: Monsieur Lieu vain, 
the King; Monsieur Tuvache, the Prefect; Monsieur 
Derozerays, Agriculture; Monsieur Homais, Industry 
and the Fine Arts, those twin sisters; Monsieur Le- 
plichey, Progress. In the evening some brilliant fire- 
works on a sudden illumined the air. One would have 

C 194] 


MADAME BOVARY 

called it a veritable kaleidoscope, a real operatic scene; 
and for a moment our little locality might have thought 
itself transported into the midst of a dream of the ‘Thou- 
sand and One Nights/ 

“Let us state that no untoward event disturbed this 
family meeting.” And he added: “Only the absence 
of the clergy was remarked. No doubt the priests under- 
stand progress in another fashion. Just as you please, 
messieurs the followers of Loyola!” 


[ 195] 


IX 


S IX weeks passed. Rodolphe did not come again. 
At last one evening he appeared. 

The day after the show he had said to himself — 

“We mustn’t go back too soon; that would be a mistake.” 
And at the end of a week he had gone off hunting. 
After the hunting he had thought it was too late, and 
then he reasoned thus — 

“If from the first day she loved me, she must from 
impatience to see me again love me more. Let’s go on 
with it!” 

And he knew that his calculation had been right when, 
on entering the room, he saw Emma turn pale. 

She was alone. The day was drawing in. The 
small muslin curtain along the windows deepened the 
twilight, and the gilding of the barometer, on which the 
rays of the sun fell, shone in the looking-glass between 
the meshes of the coral. 

Rodolphe remained standing, and Emma hardly 
answered his first conventional phrases. 

“I,” he said, “have been busy. I have been ill.” 
“Seriously?” she cried. 

“Well,” said Rodolphe, sitting down at her side on a 
footstool, “no; it was because I did not want to come 
back.” 

“Why?” 

“Can you not guess?” 

C 196] 


MADAME BOVARY 


He looked at her again, but so hard that she lowered 
her head, blushing. He went on — 

“Emma!” 

“Sir,” she said, drawing back a little. 

“Ah! you see,” replied he in a melancholy voice, 
“that I was right not to come back; for this name, 
this name that fills my whole soul, and that escaped me, 
you forbid me to use! Madame Bovary! why all the 
world calls you thus! Besides, it is not your name; 
it is the name of another!” he repeated, “of another!” 
And he hid his face in his hands. “Yes, I think of you 
constantly. The memory of you drives me to despair. 
Ah! forgive me! I will leave you! Farewell! I will go 
far away, so far that you will never hear of me again; 
and yet — to-day — I know not what force impelled me 
towards you. For one does not struggle against Heaven; 
one cannot resist the smile of angels; one is carried away 
by that which is beautiful, charming, adorable.” 

It was the first time that Emma had heard such words 
spoken to herself, and her pride, like one who reposes 
bathed in warmth, expanded softly and fully at this 
glowing language. 

“But if I did not come,” he continued, “if I could 
not see you, at least I have gazed long on all that sur- 
rounds you. At night — every night — I arose; I 
came hither; I watched your house, its glimmering in 
the moon, the trees in the garden swaying before your 
window, and the little lamp, a gleam shining through 
the window-panes in the darkness. Ah! you never 
knew that there, so near you, so far from you, was a 
poor wretch!” 

She turned towards him with a sob. 

C 197] 


MADAME BOVARY 


u 0h, you are good!” she said. 

“No, I love you, that is all! You do not doubt that! 
Tell me — one word — only one word!” 

And Rodolphe imperceptibly glided from the footstool 
to the ground; but a sound of wooden shoes was heard 
in the kitchen, and he noticed the door of the room 
was not closed. 

“How kind it would be of you,” he went on, rising, 
“if you would humour a whim of mine.” It was to go 
over her house; he wanted to know it; and Madame 
Bovary seeing no objection to this, they both rose, 
when Charles came in. 

“Good morning, doctor,” Rodolphe said to him. 

The doctor, flattered at this unexpected title, launched 
out into obsequious phrases. Of this the other took 
advantage to pull himself together a little. 

“Madame was speaking to me,” he then said, “about 
her health.” 

Charles interrupted him; he had indeed a thousand 
anxieties; his wife’s palpitations of the heart were be- 
ginning again. Then Rodolphe asked if riding would 
not be good. 

“Certainly! excellent! just the thing! There’s an 
idea! You ought to follow it up.” 

And as she objected that she had no horse, Monsieur 
Rodolphe offered one. She refused his offer; he did 
not insist. Then to explain his visit he said that his 
ploughman, the man of the blood-letting, still suffered 
from giddiness. 

“I’ll call around,” said Bovary. 

“No, no! I’ll send him to you; we’II come; that will 
be more convenient for you.” 

c 198] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Ah! very good! I thank you.” 

And as soon as they were alone, “Why don’t you 
accept Monsieur Boulanger’s kind offer?” 

She assumed a sulky air, invented a thousand excuses, 
and finally declared that perhaps it would look odd. 

“Well, what the deuce do I care for that?” said Charles, 
making a pirouette. “Health before everything! You 
are wrong.” 

“And how do you think I can ride when I haven’t 
got a habit?” 

“You must order one,” he answered. 

The riding-habit decided her. 

When the habit was ready, Charles wrote to Monsieur 
Boulanger that his wife was at his command, and that 
they counted on his good-nature. 

The next day at noon Rodolphe appeared at Charles’s 
door with two saddle-horses. One had pink rosettes 
at his ears and a deerskin side-saddle. 

Rodolphe had put on high soft boots, saying to himself 
that no doubt she had never seen anything like them. In 
fact, Emma was charmed with his appearance as he stood 
on the landing in his great velvet coat and white corduroy 
breeches. She was ready; she was waiting for him. 

Justin escaped from the chemist’s to see her start, and 
the chemist also came out. He was giving Monsieur 
Boulanger a little good advice. 

“An accident happens so easily. Be careful! Your 
horses perhaps are mettlesome.” 

She heard a noise above her; it was Felicite drumming 
on the window-panes to amuse little Berthe. The 
child blew her a kiss; her mother answered with a wave 
of her whip. 


[i99] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“A pleasant ride!” cried Monsieur Homais. “Pru- 
dence! above all, prudence!” And he flourished his 
newspaper as he saw them disappear. 

As soon as he felt the ground, Emma’s horse set off 
at a gallop. Rodolphe galloped by her side. Now 
and then they exchanged a word. Her figure slightly 
bent, her hand well up, and her right arm stretched 
out, she gave herself up to the cadence of the movement 
that rocked her in her saddle. At the bottom of the 
hill Rodolphe gave his horse its head; they started 
together at a bound, then at the top suddenly the horses 
stopped, and her large blue veil fell about her. 

It was early in October. There was fog over the 
land. Hazy clouds hovered on the horizon between 
the outlines of the hills; others, rent asunder, floated 
up and disappeared. Sometimes through a rift in the 
clouds, beneath a ray of sunshine, gleamed from afar 
the roofs of Yonville, with the gardens at the water’s 
edge, the yards, the walls and the church steeple. Emma 
half closed her eyes to pick out her house, and never had 
this poor village where she lived appeared so small. 
From the height on which they were the whole valley 
seemed an immense pale lake sending off its vapour 
into the air. Clumps of trees here and there stood out 
like black rocks, and the tall lines of the poplars that 
rose above the mist were like a beach stirred by the 
wind. 

By the side, on the turf between the pines, a brown 
light shimmered in the warm atmosphere. The earth, 
ruddy like the powder of tobacco, deadened the noise of 
their steps, and with the edge of their shoes the horses as 
they walked kicked the fallen fir cones in front of them. 

C 200 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Rodolphe and Emma thus went along the skirt of the 
wood. She turned away from time to time to avoid his 
look, and then she saw only the pine trunks in lines, 
whose monotonous succession made her a little giddy. 
The horses were panting; the leather of the saddles 
creaked. 

Just as they were entering the forest the sun shone 
out. 

“God protects us!” said Rodolphe. 

“Do you think so?” she said. 

“Forward! forward!” he continued. 

He “tchk’d” with his tongue. The two beasts set 
off at a trot. Long ferns by the roadside caught in 
Emma’s stirrup. Rodolphe leant forward and removed 
them as they rode along. At other times, to turn aside 
the branches, he passed close to her, and Emma felt 
his knee brushing against her leg. The sky was now 
blue, the leaves no longer stirred. There were spaces 
full of heather in flower, and plots of violets alternated 
with the confused patches of the trees that were grey, 
fawn, or golden coloured, according to the nature of 
their leaves. Often in the thicket was heard the flutter- 
ing of wings, or else the hoarse, soft cry of the ravens 
flying off amidst the oaks. 

They dismounted. Rodolphe fastened up the horses. 
She walked on in front on the moss between the paths. 
But her long habit got in her way, although she held 
it up by the skirt; and Rodolphe, walking behind her, 
saw between the black cloth and the black shoe the 
fineness of her white stocking, that seemed to him as 
if it were a part of her nakedness. 

She stopped. “I am tired,” she said. 

C 201 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Come, try again,” he went on. “ Courage !” 

Then some hundred paces farther on she again 
stopped, and through her veil, that fell sideways from 
her man's hat over her hips, her face appeared in a 
bluish transparency as if she were floating under azure 
waves. 

“But where are we going?” 

He did not answer. She was breathing irregularly. 
Rodolphe looked round him biting his moustache. They 
came to a larger space where the coppice had been cut. 
They sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree, and Rodolphe 
began speaking to her of his love. He did not begin 
by frightening her with compliments. He was calm, 
serious, melancholy. 

Emma listened to him with bowed head, and stirred 
the bits of wood on the ground with the tip of her foot. 

But at the words, “Are not our destinies now one?” — 

“Oh, no!” she replied. “You know that well. It 
is impossible!” 

She rose to go. He seized her by the wrist. She 
stopped. Then, having gazed at him for a few moments 
with an amorous and humid look, she said hurriedly — 

“Ah! do not speak of it again! Where are the horses? 
Let us go back.” 

He made a gesture of anger and annoyance. She 
repeated : 

“Where are the horses? Where are the horses?” 

Then smiling a strange smile, his pupil fixed, his 
teeth set, he advanced with outstretched arms. She 
recoiled trembling. She stammered: 

“Oh, you frighten me! You hurt me! Let me go!” 

“If it must be,” he went on, his face changing; and 
[ 202 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


he again became respectful, caressing, timid. She gave 
him her arm. They went back. He said: 

“What was the matter with you? Why? I do not 
understand. You were mistaken, no doubt. In my soul 
you are as a Madonna on a pedestal, in a place lofty, 
secure, immaculate. But I need you to live! I must 
have your eyes, your voice, your thought! Be my friend, 
my sister, my angel !” 

And he put out his arm round her waist. She feebly 
tried to disengage herself. He supported her thus as 
they walked along. 

But they heard the two horses browsing on the leaves. 

“Oh! one moment !” said Rodolphe. “Do not let us 
go! Stay!” 

He drew her farther on to a small pool where duck- 
weeds made a greenness on the water. Faded water- 
lilies lay motionless between the reeds. At the noise 
of their steps in the grass, frogs jumped away to hide 
themselves. 

“I am wrong! I am wrong!” she said. “I am mad 
to listen to you!” 

‘ ‘ Why? Emma ! Emma ! * ’ 

“Oh, Rodolphe!” said the young woman slowly, 
leaning on his shoulder. 

The cloth of her habit caught against the velvet of 
his coat. She threw back her white neck, swelling with 
a sigh, and faltering, in tears, with a long shudder and 
hiding her face, she gave herself up to him. 

The shades of night were falling; the horizontal sun 
passing between the branches dazzled the eyes. Here 
and there around her, in the leaves or on the ground, 
trembled luminous patches, as if humming-birds flying 
[203 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


about had scattered their feathers. Silence was every- 
where; something sweet seemed to come forth from the 
trees; she felt her heart, whose beating had begun again, 
and the blood coursing through her flesh like a stream 
of milk. Then far away, beyond the wood, on the other 
hills, she heard a vague prolonged cry, a voice which 
lingered, and in silence she heard it mingling like music 
with the last pulsations of her throbbing nerves. Ro- 
dolphe, a cigar between his lips, was mending with 
his penknife one of the two broken bridles. 

They returned to Yonville by the same road. On the 
mud they saw again the traces of their horses side by 
side, the same thickets, the same stones in the grass; 
nothing around them seemed changed; and yet for her 
something had happened more stupendous than if the 
mountains had moved in their places. Rodolphe now 
and again bent forward and took her hand to kiss it. 

She was charming on horseback — upright, with her 
slender waist, her knee bent on the mane of her horse, 
her face somewhat flushed by the fresh air in the red of 
the evening. 

On entering Yonville she made her horse prance in 
the road. People looked at her from the windows. 

At dinner her husband thought she looked well, but 
she pretended not to hear him when he inquired about 
her ride, and she remained sitting there with her elbow 
at the side of her plate between the two lighted candles. 

“Emma!” he said. 

“What?” 

“Well, I spent the afternoon at Monsieur Alexandre’s. 
He has an old cob, still very fine, only a little broken- 
kneed, and that could be bought, I am sure, for a hundred 
C 204] 


MADAME BOVARY 


crowns.” He added, “And thinking it might please you, 
I have bespoken it — bought it. Have I done right? 
Do tell me?” 

She nodded her head in assent; then a quarter of an 
hour later 

“Are you going out to-night?” she asked. 

“Yes. Why?” 

“Oh, nothing, nothing, my dear!” 

And as soon as she had got rid of Charles she went and 
shut herself up in her room. 

At first she felt stunned; she saw the trees, the paths, 
the ditches, Rodolphe, and she again felt the pressure of 
his arm, while the leaves rustled and the reeds whistled. 

But when she saw herself in the glass she wondered 
at her face. Never had her eyes been so large, so black, 
of so profound a depth. Something subtle about her 
being transfigured her. She repeated, “I have a lover! 
a lover!” delighting at the idea as if a second puberty 
had come to her. So at last she was to know those 
joys of love, that fever of happiness of which she had 
despaired! She was entering upon marvels where all 
would be passion, ecstasy, delirium. An azure infinity 
encompassed her, the heights of sentiment sparkled 
under her thought, and ordinary existence appeared 
only afar off, down below in the shade, through the 
interspaces of these heights. 

Then she recalled the heroines of the books that she 
had read, and the lyric legion of these adulterous women 
began to sing in her memory with the voice of sisters 
that charmed her. She became herself, as it were, an 
actual part of these imaginings, and realised the love- 
dream of her youth as she saw herself in this type of 
[205] 


MADAME BOVARY 


amorous women whom she had so envied. Besides, 
Emma felt a satisfaction of revenge. Had she not 
suffered enough? But now she triumphed, and the love 
so long pent up burst forth in full joyous bubblings. She 
tasted it without remorse, without anxiety, without 
trouble. 

The day following passed with a new sweetness. They 
made vows to one another. She told him of her sorrows. 
Rodolphe interrupted her with kisses; and she, looking 
at him through half-closed eyes, asked him to call her 
again by her name — to say that he loved her. They 
were in the forest, as yesterday, in the shed of some 
wooden-shoe maker. The walls were of straw, and the 
roof so low they had to stoop. They were seated side 
by side on a bed of dry leaves. 

From that day forth they wrote to one another regu- 
larly every evening. Emma placed her letter at the 
end of the garden, by the river, in a fissure of the wall. 
Rodolphe came to fetch it, and put another there, that 
she always found fault with as too short. 

One morning, when Charles had gone out before day- 
break, she was seized with the fancy to see Rodolphe 
at once. She would go quickly to La Huchette, stay 
there an hour, and be back again at Yonville while every- 
one was still asleep. This idea made her pant with desire, 
and she soon found herself in the middle of the field, 
walking with rapid steps, without looking behind her. 

Day was just breaking. Emma from afar recognised 
her lover's house. Its two dove-tailed weathercocks 
stood out black against the pale dawn. 

Beyond the farmyard there was a detached building 
that she thought must be the chateau. She entered 
[ 206 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


it as if the doors at her approach had opened wide of 
their own accord. A large straight staircase led up to 
the corridor. Emma raised the latch of a door, and 
suddenly at the end of the room she saw a man sleeping. 
It was Rodolphe. She uttered a cry. 

“You here? You here?” he repeated. “How did 
you manage to come? Ah! your dress is damp.” 

“I love you,” she answered, throwing her arms about 
his neck. 

This first piece of daring successful, now every time 
Charles went out early Emma dressed quickly and 
slipped on tiptoe down the steps that led to the water- 
side. 

But when the plank for the cows was taken up, she 
had to go by the walls alongside of the river; the bank 
was slippery; in order not to fall she caught hold of 
the tufts of faded wallflowers. Then she went across 
ploughed fields, in which she sank, stumbling, and clog- 
ging her thin shoes. Her scarf, knotted round her head, 
fluttered to the wind in the meadows. She was afraid 
of the oxen; she began to run; she arrived out of breath, 
with rosy cheeks, and breathing out from her whole 
person a fresh perfume of sap, of verdure, of the open 
air. At this hour Rodolphe still slept. It was like 
a spring morning coming into his room. 

The yellow curtains along the windows let a heavy, 
whitish light enter softly. Emma felt about, opening 
and closing her eyes, while the drops of dew hanging 
from her hair formed, as it were, a topaz aureole around 
her face. Rodolphe, laughing, drew her to him, and 
pressed her to his breast. 

Then she examined the apartment, opened the drawers 
[207] 


MADAME BOVARY 


of the tables, combed her hair with his comb, and looked 
at herself in his shaving-glass. Often she even put 
between her teeth the big pipe that lay on the table 
by the bed, amongst lemons and pieces of sugar near a 
bottle of water. 

It took them a good quarter of an hour to say good- 
bye. Then Emma cried. She would have wished never 
to leave Rodolphe. Something stronger than herself 
forced her to him; so much so, that one day, seeing her 
come unexpectedly, he frowned as one put out. 

“What is the matter with you?” she said. “Are you 
ill? Tell me!” 

At last he declared with a serious air that her visits 
were becoming imprudent — that she was compromising 
herself. 


[208] 


X 


/'GRADUALLY Rodolphe’s fears took possession of 
her. At first, love had intoxicated her, and she 
had thought of nothing beyond. But now that he was 
indispensable to her life, she feared to lose anything of 
this, or even that it should be disturbed. When she 
came back from his house, she looked all about her, 
anxiously watching every form that passed in the horizon, 
and every village window from which she could be seen. 
She listened for steps, cries, the noise of the ploughs, 
and she stopped short, white, and trembling more than 
the aspen leaves swaying overhead. 

One morning as she was thus returning, she suddenly 
thought she saw the long barrel of a carbine that seemed 
to be aimed at her. It stuck out sideways from the end 
of a small tub half-buried in the grass on the edge of a 
ditch. Emma, half-fainting with terror, nevertheless 
walked on, and a man stepped out of the tub like a 
Jack-in-the-box. He had gaiters buckled up to the 
knees, his cap pulled down over his eyes, trembling 
lips, and a red nose. It was Captain Binet lying in 
ambush for wild ducks. 

“You ought to have called out long ago!” he exclaimed. 
“When one sees a gun, one should always give warning.” 

The tax-collector was thus trying to hide the fright 
he had had, for a prefectorial order having prohibited 
duck-hunting except in boats, Monsieur Binet, despite 
C209] 


MADAME BOVARY 


his respect for the laws, was infringing them, and so he 
every moment expected to see the rural guard turn up. 
But this anxiety whetted his pleasure, and, all alone in 
his tub, he congratulated himself on his luck and on his 
’cuteness. 

At sight of Emma he seemed relieved from a great 
weight, and at once entered upon a conversation. 

“It isn’t warm; it’s nipping.” 

Emma answered nothing. He went on — 

“And you’re out so early?” 

“Yes,” she said stammering; “I am just coming from 
the nurse where my child is.” 

“Ah! very good! very good! For myself, I am here, 
just as you see me, since break of day; but the weather 
is so muggy, that unless one had the bird at the mouth 
of the gun ” 

“Good evening, Monsieur Binet,” she interrupted 
him, turning on her heel. 

“Your servant, madame,” he replied drily; and he 
went back into his tub. 

Emma regretted having left the tax-collector so 
abruptly. No doubt he would form unfavourable con- 
jectures. The story about the nurse was the worst 
possible excuse, everyone at Yonville knowing that the 
little Bovary had been at home with her parents for a 
year. Besides, no one was living in this direction; 
this path led only to La Huchette. Binet, then, would 
guess whence she came, and he would not keep silence; 
he would talk, that was certain. She remained until 
evening racking her brain with every conceivable lying 
project, and had constantly before her eyes that imbecile 
with the game-bag. 


[210] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Charles after dinner, seeing her gloomy, proposed, by 
way of distraction, to take her to the chemist’s, and the 
first person she caught sight of in the shop was the tax- 
collector again. He was standing in front of the counter, 
lit up by the gleams of the red bottle, and was saying — 

“ Please give me half an ounce of vitriol.” 

“Justin,” cried the druggist, “bring us the sulphuric 
acid.” Then to Emma, who was going up to Madame 
Homais’ room, “No, stay here; it isn’t worth while 
going up; she is just coming down. Warm yourself 
at the stove in the meantime. Excuse me. Good-day, 
doctor” (for the chemist much enjoyed pronouncing the 
word “doctor,” as if addressing another by it reflected 
on himself some of the grandeur that he found in it). 
“Now, take care not to upset the mortars! You’d 
better fetch some chairs from the little room; you know 
very well that the arm-chairs are not to be taken out of 
the drawing-room.” 

And to put his arm-chair back in its place he was 
darting away from the counter, when Binet asked him 
for half an ounce of sugar acid. 

“Sugar acid!” said the chemist contemptuously, 
“don’t know it; I’m ignorant of it! But perhaps you 
want oxalic acid. It is oxalic acid, isn’t it?” 

Binet explained that he wanted a corrosive to make 
himself some copper-water with which to remove rust 
from his hunting things. 

Emma shuddered. The chemist began saying — 

“Indeed the weather is not propitious on account of 
the damp.” 

“Nevertheless,” replied the tax-collector, with a sly 
look, “there are people who like it.” 

[211 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


She was stifling. 

“And give me ” 

“Will he never go?” thought she. 

“Half an ounce of resin and turpentine, four ounces of 
yellow wax, and three half ounces of animal charcoal, 
if you please, to clean the varnished leather of my togs.” 

The druggist was beginning to cut the wax when 
Madame Homais appeared, Irma in her arms, Napoleon 
on by her side, and Athalie following. She sat down 
on the velvet seat by the window, and the lad squatted 
down on a footstool, while his eldest sister hovered round 
the jujube box near her papa. The latter was filling 
funnels and corking phials, sticking on labels, making 
up parcels. Around him all were silent; only from time 
to time were heard the weights jingling in the balance, 
and a few low words from the chemist giving directions 
to his pupil. 

“And how’s the little woman?” suddenly asked 
Madame Homais. 

“Silence!” exclaimed her husband, who was writing 
down some figures in his waste-book. 

“Why didn’t you bring her?” she went on in a low 
voice. 

“Hush! hush!” said Emma, pointing with her finger 
to the druggist. 

But Binet, quite absorbed in looking over his bill, 
had probably heard nothing. At last he went out. 
Then Emma, relieved, uttered a deep sigh. 

“How hard you are breathing!” said Madame Homais. 

“Well, you see, it’s rather warm,” she replied. 

So the next day they talked over how to arrange their 
rendezvous. Emma wanted to bribe her servant with 
[ 212 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


a present, but it would be better to find some safe house 
at Yonville. Rodolphe promised to look for one. 

All through the winter, three or four times a week, 
in the dead of night he came to the garden. Emma had 
on purpose taken away the key of the gate, which Charles 
thought lost. 

To call her, Rodolphe threw a sprinkle of sand at the 
shutters. She jumped up with a start; but sometimes 
he had to wait, for Charles had a mania for chatting by 
the fireside, and he would not stop. She was wild with 
impatience; if her eyes could have done it, she would 
have hurled him out at the window. At last she would 
begin to undress, then take up a book, and go on reading 
very quietly as if the book amused her. But Charles, 
who was in bed, called to her to come too. 

“Come, now, Emma,” he said, “it is time.” 

“Yes, I am coming,” she answered. 

Then, as the candles dazzled him, he turned to the wall 
and fell asleep. She escaped, smiling, palpitating, un- 
dressed. 

Rodolphe had a large cloak; he wrapped her in it, 
and putting his arm round her waist, he drew her without 
a word to the end of the garden. 

It was in the arbour, on the same seat of old sticks 
where formerly Leon had looked at her so amorously on 
the summer evenings. She never thought of him now. 

The stars shone through the leafless jasmine branches. 
Behind them they heard the river flowing, and now and 
again on the bank the rustling of the dry reeds. Masses 
of shadow here and there loomed out in the darkness, 
and sometimes, vibrating with one movement, they 
rose up and swayed like immense black waves pressing 

[213] 


MADAME BOVARY 


forward to engulf them. The cold of the nights made 
them clasp closer; the sighs of their lips seemed to them 
deeper; their eyes, that they could hardly see, larger; 
and in the midst of the silence low words were spoken 
that fell on their souls sonorous, crystalline, and that 
reverberated in multiplied vibrations. 

When the night was rainy, they took refuge in the 
consulting-room between the cart-shed and the stable. 
She lighted one of the kitchen candles that she had 
hidden behind the books. Rodolphe settled down there 
as if at home. The sight of the library, of the bureau, 
of the whole apartment, in fine, excited his merriment, 
and he could not refrain from making jokes about Charles, 
which rather embarrassed Emma. She would have 
liked to see him more serious, and even on occasions 
more dramatic; as, for example, when she thought 
she heard a noise of approaching steps in the alley. 

“Someone is coming!” she said. 

He blew out the light. 

“Have you your pistols?” 

“Why?” 

“Why, to defend yourself,” replied Emma. 

“From your husband? Oh, poor devil!” And Ro- 
dolphe finished his sentence with a gesture that said, 
“ I could crush him with a flip of my finger.” 

She was wonder-stricken at his bravery, although she 
felt in it a sort of indecency and a naive coarseness that 
scandalised her. 

Rodolphe reflected a good deal on the affair of the 
pistols. If she had spoken seriously, it was very ridicu- 
lous, he thought, even odious; for he had no reason to 
hate the good Charles, not being what is called devoured 
[214] 


MADAME BOVARY 


by jealousy; and on this subject Emma had taken a 
great vow that he did not think in the best of taste. 

Besides, she was growing very sentimental. She had 
insisted on exchanging miniatures; they had cut off 
handfuls of hair, and now she was asking for a ring — 
a real wedding-ring, in sign of an eternal union. She 
often spoke to him of the evening chimes, of the voices 
of nature. Then she talked to him of her mother — 
hers ! and of his mother — his ! Rodolphe had lost his 
twenty years ago. Emma none the less consoled him 
with caressing words as one would have done a lost child, 
and she sometimes even said to him, gazing at the moon — 

“I am sure that above there together they approve 
of our love.” 

But she was so pretty. He had possessed so few 
women of such ingenuousness. This love without de- 
bauchery was a new experience for him, and, drawing 
him out of his lazy habits, caressed at once his pride and 
his sensuality. Emma’s enthusiasm, which his bour- 
geois good sense disdained, seemed to him in his heart 
of hearts charming, since it was lavished on him. Then, 
sure of being loved, he no longer kept up appearances, 
and insensibly his ways changed. 

He had no longer, as formerly, words so gentle that 
they made her cry, nor passionate caresses that made 
her mad, so that their great love, which engrossed her 
life, seemed to lessen beneath her like the water of a 
stream absorbed into its channel, and she could see the 
bed of it. She would not believe it; she redoubled in 
tenderness, and Rodolphe concealed his indifference less 
and less. 

She did not know if she regretted having yielded to 
[215] 


MADAME BOVARY 


him, or whether she did not wish, on the contrary, to 
enjoy him the more. The humiliation of feeling herself 
weak was turning to rancour, tempered by their volup- 
tuous pleasures. It was not affection; it was like a 
continual seduction. He subjugated her; she almost 
feared him. 

Appearances, nevertheless, were calmer than ever, Ro- 
dolphe having succeeded in carrying out the adultery after 
his own fancy; and at the end of six months, when the 
spring-time came, they were to one another like a married 
couple, tranquilly keeping up a domestic flame. 

It was the time of year when old Rouault sent his turkey 
in remembrance of the setting of his leg. The present 
always arrived with a letter. Emma cut the string that 
tied it to the basket, and read the following lines : — 

“My Dear Children, — I hope this will find you 
well, and that this one will be as good as the others, for 
it seems to me a little more tender, if I may venture 
to say so, and heavier. But next time, for a change, 
HI give you a turkey-cock, unless you have a preference 
for some dabs; and send me back the hamper, if you 
please, with the two old ones. I have had an accident 
with my cart-sheds, whose covering flew off one windy 
night among the trees. The harvest has not been over- 
good either. Finally, I don’t know when I shall come 
to see you. It is so difficult now to leave the house 
since I am alone, my poor Emma.” 

Here there was a break in the lines, as if the old fellow 
had dropped his pen to dream a little while. 

“ For myself, I am very well, except for a cold I caught 
[216] 


MADAME BOVARY 


the other day at the fair at Yvetot, where I had gone to 
hire a shepherd, having turned away mine because he 
was too dainty. How we are to be pitied with such a 
lot of thieves! Besides, he was also rude. I heard from 
a pedlar, who, travelling through your part of the coun- 
try this winter, had a tooth drawn, that Bovary was 
as usual working hard. That doesn't surprise me; and 
he showed me his tooth; we had some coffee together. 
I asked him if he had seen you, and he said not, but 
that he had seen two horses in the stables, from which 
I conclude that business is looking up. So much the 
better, my dear children, and may God send you every 
imaginable happiness! It grieves me not yet to have 
seen my dear little grand-daughter, Berthe Bovary. 
I have planted an Orleans plum-tree for her in the gar- 
den under your room, and I won't have it touched unless 
it is to have jam made for her by and bye, that I will 
keep in the cupboard for her when she comes. 

“Good-bye, my dear children. I kiss you, my girl, 
you too, my son-in-law, and the little one on both cheeks. 
I am, with best compliments, your loving father. 

“Theodore Rouault." 

She held the coarse paper in her fingers for some 
minutes. The spelling mistakes were interwoven one 
with the other, and Emma followed the kindly thought 
that cackled right through it like a hen half hidden 
in a hedge of thorns. The writing had been dried with 
ashes from the hearth, for a little grey powder slipped 
from the letter on to her dress, and she almost thought 
she saw her father bending over the hearth to take up 
the tongs. How long since she had been with him, 
[217] 


MADAME BOVARY 


sitting on the footstool in the chimney-corner, where she 
used to burn the end of a bit of wood in the great flame 
of the sea-sedges! She remembered the summer evenings 
all full of sunshine. The colts neighed when anyone 
passed by, and galloped, galloped. Under her window 
there was a beehive, and sometimes the bees wheeling 
round in the light struck against her window like rebound- 
ing balls of gold. What happiness there had been at that 
time, what freedom, what hope! What an abundance of 
illusions! Nothing was left of them now. She had 
got rid of them all in her soul’s life, in all her successive 
conditions of life, — maidenhood, her marriage, and her 
love; — thus constantly losing them all her life through, 
like a traveller who leaves something of his wealth at 
every inn along his road. 

But what then made her so unhappy? What was the 
extraordinary catastrophe that had transformed her? 
And she raised her head, looking round as if to seek the 
cause of that which made her suffer. 

An April ray was dancing on the china of the whatnot; 
the fire burned; beneath her slippers she felt the softness 
of the carpet; the day was bright, the air warm, and she 
heard her child shouting with laughter. 

In fact, the little girl was just then rolling on the lawn 
in the midst of the grass that was being turned. She 
was lying flat on her stomach at the top of a rick. The 
servant was holding her by her skirt. Lestiboudois 
was raking by her side, and every time he came near 
she lent forward, beating the air with both her arms. 

“Bring her to me,” said her mother, rushing to em- 
brace her. “How I love you, my poor child! How 
I love you!” 


[218] 


MADAME BOVARY 

Then noticing that the tips of her ears were rather 
dirty, she rang at once for warm water, and washed her, 
changed her linen, her stockings, her shoes, asked a 
thousand questions about her health, as if on the return 
from a long journey, and finally, kissing her again and 
crying a little, she gave her back to the servant, who 
stood quite thunderstricken at this excess of tenderness. 

That evening Rodolphe found her more serious than 
usual. 

“That will pass over,” he concluded; “it’s a whim.” 

And he missed three rendezvous running. When he did 
come, she showed herself cold and almost contemptuous. 

“Ah! you’re losing your time, my lady!” 

And he pretended not to notice her melancholy sighs, 
nor the handkerchief she took out. 

Then Emma repented. She even asked herself why 
she detested Charles; if it had not been better to have 
been able to love him? But he gave her no opportunities 
for such a revival of sentiment, so that she was much em- 
barrassed by her desire for sacrifice, when the druggist 
came just in time to provide her with an opportunity. 


[219] 


XI 


H E had recently read a eulogy on a new method 
for curing club-foot, and as he was a partisan of 
progress, he conceived the patriotic idea that Yonville, 
in order to keep to the fore, ought to have some operations 
for strephopody or club-foot. 

“For,” said he to Emma, “what risk is there? See” 
(and he enumerated on his fingers the advantages of the 
attempt), “success, almost certain relief and beautifying 
of the patient, celebrity acquired by the ’Operator. Why, 
for example, should not your husband relieve poor 
Hippolyte of the ‘Lion d’Or’? Note that he would not 
fail to tell about his cure to all the travellers, and then” 
(Homais lowered his voice and looked round him) “who 
is to prevent me from sending a short paragraph on the 
subject to the paper? Eh! goodness me! an article gets 
about; it is talked of; it ends by making a snowball! 
And who knows? who knows?” 

In fact, Bovary might succeed. Nothing proved to 
Emma that he was not clever; and what a satisfaction 
for her to have urged him to a step by which his repu- 
tation and fortune would be increased! She only wished 
to lean on something more solid than love. 

Charles, urged by the druggist and by her, allowed 
himself to be persuaded. He sent to Rouen for Dr. 
Duval’s volume, and every evening, holding his head 
between both hands, plunged into the reading of it. 

[ 220 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


While he was studying equinus, varus, and valgus, 
that is to say, katastrephopody , endostrephopody , and 
exostrephopody (or better, the various turnings of the 
foot downwards, inwards, and outwards, with the hypo- 
strephopody and anastrephopody) t otherwise torsion down- 
wards and upwards, Monsieur Homais, with all sorts of 
arguments, was exhorting the lad at the inn to submit 
to the operation. 

“You will scarcely feel, probably, a slight pain; it is 
a simple prick, like a little blood-letting, less than the 
extraction of certain corns.” 

Hippolyte, reflecting, rolled his stupid eyes. 

“However,” continued the chemist, “it doesn’t con- 
cern me. It’s for your sake, for pure humanity! I 
should like to see you, my friend, rid of your hideous 
caudication, together with that waddling of the lumbar 
regions which, whatever you say, must considerably 
interfere with you in the exercise of your calling.” 

Then Homais represented to him how much jollier 
and brisker he would feel afterwards, and even gave him 
to understand that he would be more likely to please 
the women; and the stable-boy began to smile heavily. 
Then he attacked him through his vanity: — 

“Aren’t you a man? Hang it! what would you have 
done if you had had to go into the army, to go and fight 
beneath the standard? Ah! Hippolyte!” 

And Homais retired, declaring that he could not under- 
stand this obstinacy, this blindness in refusing the bene- 
factions of science. 

The poor fellow gave way, for it was like a conspiracy. 
Binet, who never interfered with other people’s business, 
Madame Lefran?ois, Artemise, the neighbours, even the 
[ 221 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


mayor, Monsieur Tuvache — everyone persuaded him, 
lectured him, shamed him; but what finally decided him 
was that it would cost him nothing. Bovary even under- 
took to provide the machine for the operation. This 
generosity was an idea of Emma’s, and Charles consented 
to it, thinking in his heart of hearts that his wife was an 
angel. 

So by the advice of the chemist, and after three fresh 
starts, he had a kind of box made by the carpenter, with 
the aid of the locksmith, that weighed about eight pounds, 
and in which iron, wood, sheet-iron, leather, screws, 
and nuts had not been spared. 

But to know which of Hippolyte’s tendons to cut, 
it was necessary first of all to find out what kind of club- 
foot he had. 

He had a foot forming almost a straight line with the 
leg, which, however, did not prevent it from being turned 
in, so that it was an equinus together with something of 
a varus, or else a slight varus with a strong tendency 
to equinus. But with this equinus, wide in foot like a 
horse’s hoof, with rugose skin, dry tendons, and large 
toes, on which the black nails looked as if made of iron, 
the club-foot ran about like a deer from morn till night. 
He was constantly to be seen on the Place, jumping 
round the carts, thrusting his limping foot forwards. He 
seemed even stronger on that leg than the other. By dint 
of hard service it had acquired, as it were, moral qualities 
of patience and energy; and when he was given some 
heavy work, he stood on it in preference to its fellow. 

Now, as it was an equinus, it was necessary to cut the 
tendon of Achilles, and, if need were, the anterior tibial 
muscle could be seen to afterwards for getting rid of the 
[ 222 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


varus; for the doctor did not dare to risk both opera- 
tions at once; he was even trembling already for fear of 
injuring some important region that he did not know. 

Neither Ambrose Pare, applying for the first time since 
Celsus, after an interval of fifteen centuries, a ligature 
to an artery, nor Dupuytren, about to open an abcess 
in the brain, nor Gensoul when he first took away the 
superior maxilla, had hearts that trembled, hands that 
shook, minds so strained as Monsieur Bovary when he 
approached Hippolyte, his tenotome between his fingers. 
And as at hospitals, near by on a table lay a heap of lint, 
with waxed thread, many bandages — a pyramid of 
bandages — every bandage to be found at the druggist’s. 
It was Monsieur Homais who since morning had been 
organising all these preparations, as much to dazzle 
the multitude as to keep up his illusions. Charles pierced 
the skin; a dry crackling was heard. The tendon was 
cut, the operation over. Hippolyte could not get over 
his surprise, but bent over Bovary’s hands to cover them 
with kisses. 

“Come, be calm,” said the druggist; “later on you 
will show your gratitude to your benefactor.” 

And he went down to tell the result to five or six 
inquirers who were waiting in the yard, and who fancied 
that Hippolyte would reappear walking properly. Then 
Charles, having buckled his patient into the machine, 
went home, where Emma, all anxiety, awaited him at 
the door. She threw herself on his neck; they sat down 
to table; he ate much, and at dessert he even wanted 
to take a cup of coffee, a luxury he only permitted him- 
self on Sundays when there was company. 

The evening was charming, full of prattle, of dreams 
[223] 


MADAME BOVARY 


together. They talked about their future fortune, of 
the improvements to be made in their house; he saw 
people’s estimation of him growing, his comforts increas- 
ing, his wife always loving him; and she was happy to 
refresh herself with a new sentiment, healthier, better, 
to feel at last some tenderness for this poor fellow who 
adored her. The thought of Rodolphe for one moment 
passed through her mind, but her eyes turned again 
to Charles; she even noticed with surprise that he had 
not bad teeth. 

They were in bed when Monsieur Homais, in spite of 
the servant, suddenly entered the room, holding in his 
hand a sheet of paper just written. It was the paragraph 
he intended for the “Fanal de Rouen.” He brought 
it for them to read. 

‘‘Read it yourself,” said Bovary. 

He read — 

“‘Despite the prejudices that still invest a part of 
the face of Europe like a net, the light nevertheless begins 
to penetrate our country places. Thus on Tuesday 
our little town of Yonville found itself the scene of a 
surgical operation which is at the same time an act of 
loftiest philanthropy. Monsieur Bovary, one of our 
most distinguished practitioners * ” 

“Oh, that is too much! too much!” said Charles, 
choking with emotion. 

“No, no! not at all! What next!” 

“‘ Performed an operation on a club-footed man.’ 

I have not used the scientific term, because you know 
in a newspaper everyone would not perhaps understand. 
The masses must ” 

“No doubt,” said Bovary; “go on!” 

[224] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“I proceed,” said the chemist. “‘Monsieur Bovary, 
one of our most distinguished practitioners, performed 
an operation on a club-footed man called Hippolyte 
Tautain, stable-man for the last twenty- five years at 
the hotel of the “Lion d’Or,” kept by Widow Lefrangois, 
at the Place d’Armes. The novelty of the attempt, and 
the interest incident to the subject, had attracted such 
a concourse of persons that there was a veritable ob- 
struction on the threshold of the establishment. The 
operation, moreover, was performed as if by magic, 
and barely a few drops of blood appeared on the skin, 
as though to say that the rebellious tendon had at last 
given way beneath the efforts of art. The patient, 
strangely enough — we affirm it as an eye-witness — 
complained of no pain. His condition up to the present 
time leaves nothing to be desired. Everything tends 
to show that his convalescence will be brief; and who 
knows even if at our next village festivity we shall not 
see our good Hippolyte figuring in the bacchic dance in 
the midst of a chorus of joyous boon-companions, and 
thus proving to all eyes by his verve and his capers his 
complete cure? Honour, then, to the generous savants! 
Honour to those indefatigable spirits who consecrate 
their vigils to the amelioration or to the alleviation of 
their kind! Honour, thrice honour! Is it not time to 
cry that the blind shall see, the deaf hear, the lame walk? 
But that which fanaticism formerly promised to its 
elect, science now accomplishes for all men. We shall 
keep our readers informed as to the successive phases 
of this remarkable cure.’” 

^ This did not prevent Mere Lefrangois from coming 
five days after, scared, and crying out — 

[225] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Help! he is dying! I am going crazy !” 

Charles rushed to the “Lion d’Or,” and the chemist, 
who caught sight of him passing along the Place hatless, 
abandoned his shop. He appeared himself breathless, 
red, anxious, and asking everyone who was going up 
the stairs — 

“Why, what’s the matter with our interesting strepho- 
pode?” 

The strephopode was writhing in hideous convulsions, 
so that the machine in which his leg was enclosed was 
knocked against the wall enough to break it. 

With many precautions, in order not to disturb the 
position of the limb, the box was removed, and an awful 
sight presented itself. The outlines of the foot dis- 
appeared in such a swelling that the entire skin seemed 
about to burst, and it was covered with ecchymosis, 
caused by the famous machine. Hippolyte had already 
complained of suffering from it. No attention had 
been paid to him; they had to acknowledge that he had 
not been altogether wrong, and he was freed for a few 
hours. But hardly had the oedema gone down to some 
extent, than the two savants thought fit to put back the 
limb in the apparatus, strapping it tighter to hasten 
matters. At last, three days after, Hippolyte being 
unable to endure it any longer, they once more removed 
the machine, and were much surprised at the result 
they saw. The livid tumefaction spread over the leg, 
with blisters here and there, whence there oozed a black 
liquid. Matters were taking a serious turn. Hippolyte 
began to worry himself, and Mere Lefran^ois had him 
installed in the little room near the kitchen, so that he 
might at least have some distraction. 

[226] 


MADAME BOVARY 


But the tax-collector, who dined there every day, 
complained bitterly of such companionship. Then Hip- 
polyte was removed to the billiard-room. He lay there 
moaning under his heavy coverings, pale with long 
beard, sunken eyes, and from time to time turning his 
perspiring head on the dirty pillow, where the flies alighted. 
Madame Bovary went to see him. She brought him 
linen for his poultices; she comforted, and encouraged 
him. Besides, he did not want for company, especially 
on market-days, when the peasants were knocking 
about the billiard-balls round him, fenced with the 
cues, smoked, drank, sang, and brawled. 

“How are you?” they said, clapping him on the shoul- 
der. “Ah! you’re not up to much, it seems, but it’s 
your own fault. You should do this! do that!” And 
then they told him stories of people who had all been 
cured by other remedies than his. Then by way of 
consolation they added — 

“You give way too much! Get up! You coddle 
yourself like a king! All the same, old chap, you don’t 
smell nice!” 

Gangrene, in fact, was spreading more and more. 
Bovary himself turned sick at it. He came every hour, 
every moment. Hippolyte looked at him with eyes 
full of terror, sobbing — 

“When shall I get well? Oh, save me! How un- 
fortunate I am! How unfortunate I am!” 

And the doctor left, always recommending him to 
diet himself. 

“Don’t listen to him, my lad,” said Mere Lefrangois. 
“Haven’t they tortured you enough already? You’ll 
grow still weaker. Here! swallow this.” 

[227] 


MADAME BOVARY 


And she gave him some good beef-tea, a slice of mutton, 
a piece of bacon, and sometimes small glasses of brandy, 
that he had not the strength to put to his lips. 

Abbe Bournisien, hearing that he was growing worse, 
asked to see him. He began by pitying his sufferings, 
declaring at the same time that he ought to rejoice 
at them since it was the will of the Lord, and take 
advantage of the occasion to reconcile himself to 
Heaven. 

“For,” said the ecclesiastic in a paternal tone, “you 
rather neglected your duties; you were rarely seen at 
divine worship. How many years is it since you ap- 
proached the holy table? I understand that your work, 
that the whirl of the world may have kept you from care 
for your salvation. But now is the time to reflect. 
Yet don’t despair. I have known great sinners, who, 
about to appear before God (you are not yet at this 
point I know), had implored His mercy, and who cer- 
tainly died in the best frame of mind. Let us hope that, 
like them, you will set us a good example. Thus, as a 
precaution, what is to prevent you from saying morning 
and evening a ‘ Hail Mary, full of grace,’ and ‘ Our Father 
which art in heaven’? Yes, do that, for my sake, to 
oblige me. That won’t cost you anything. Will you 
promise me?” 

The poor devil promised. The cure came back day 
after day. He chatted with the landlady, and even told 
anecdotes interspersed with jokes and puns that Hippo- 
Iyte did not understand. Then, as soon as he could, 
he fell back upon matters of religion, putting on an 
appropriate expression of face. 

His zeal seemed successful, for the club-foot soon 
[228] 


MADAME BOVARY 


manifested a desire to go on a pilgrimage to Bon-Secours 
if he were cured; to which Monsieur Bournisien replied 
that he saw no objection; two precautions were better 
than one; it was no risk anyhow. 

The druggist was indignant at what he called the 
manoeuvres of the priest; they were prejudicial, he 
said, to Hippolyte’s convalescence, and he kept repeating 
to Madame Lefran$ois, “Leave him alone! leave him 
alone! You perturb his morals with your mysticism.’ * 
But the good woman would no longer listen to him; 
he was the cause of it all. From a spirit of contradiction 
she hung up near the bedside of the patient a basin 
filled with holy-water and a branch of box. 

Religion, however, seemed no more able to succour 
him than surgery, and the invincible gangrene still 
spread from the extremities towards the stomach. It 
was all very well to vary the potions and change the 
poultices; the muscles each day rotted more and more; 
and at last Charles replied by an affirmative nod of the 
head when Mere Lefrangois asked him if she could not, 
as a forlorn hope, send for Monsieur Canivet of Neuf- 
chatel, who was a celebrity. 

A doctor of medicine, fifty years of age, enjoying a 
good position and self-possessed, Charles’s colleague did 
not refrain from laughing disdainfully when he had 
uncovered the leg, mortified to the knee. Then having 
flatly declared that it must be amputated, he went off 
to the chemist’s to rail at the asses who could have re- 
duced a poor man to such a state. Shaking Monsieur 
Homais by the button of his coat, he shouted out in the# 
shop — 

“These are the inventions of Paris! These are the 
[229] 


MADAME BOVARY 


ideas of those gentry of the capital! It is like strabismus, 
chloroform, Iithotrity, a heap of monstrosities that the 
Government ought to prohibit. But they want to do 
the clever, and they cram you with remedies without 
troubling about the consequences. We are not so 
clever, not we! We are not savants, coxcombs, fops! 
We are practitioners; we cure people, and we should 
not dream of operating on anyone who is in perfect 
health. Straighten club-feet! As if one could straighten 
club-feet! It is as if one wished, for example, to make a 
hunchback straight!” 

Homais suffered as he listened to this discourse, and 
he concealed his discomfort beneath a courtier’s smile; 
for he needed to humour Monsieur Canivet, whose 
prescriptions sometimes came as far as Yonville. So 
he did not take up the defence of Bovary; he did not 
even make a single remark, and, renouncing his prin- 
ciples, he sacrificed his dignity to the more serious in- 
terests of his business. 

This amputation of the thigh by Doctor Canivet was 
a great event in the village. On that day all the in- 
habitants got up earlier, and the Grande Rue, although 
full of people, had something lugubrious about it, as if 
an execution had been expected. At the grocer’s they 
discussed Hippolyte’s illness; the shops did no business, 
and Madame Tuvache, the mayor’s wife, did not stir 
from her window, such was her impatience to see the 
operator arrive. 

He came in his gig, which he drove himself. But the 
springs of the right side having at length given way 
beneath the weight of his corpulence, it happened that the 
carriage as it rolled along leaned over a little, and on the 
[ 230 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


other cushion near him could be seen a large box covered 
in red sheep-leather, whose three brass clasps shone 
grandly. 

After he had entered like a whirlwind the porch of the 
“Lion d’Or,” the doctor, shouting very loud, ordered 
them to unharness his horse. Then he went into the 
stable to see that he was eating his oats all right; for on 
arriving at a patient’s he first of all looked after his 
mare and his gig. People even said about this 

“Ah! Monsieur Canivet’s a character!” 

And he was the more esteemed for this imperturbable 
coolness. The universe to the last man might have 
died, and he would not have missed the smallest of his 
habits. 

Homais presented himself. 

“I count on you,” said the doctor. “Are we ready? 
Come along!” 

But the druggist, turning red, confessed that he was 
too sensitive to assist at such an operation. 

“When one is a simple spectator,” he said, “the 
imagination, you know, is impressed. And then I have 
such a nervous system!” 

“Pshaw!” interrupted Canivet; “on the contrary, 
you seem to me inclined to apoplexy. Besides, that 
doesn’t astonish me, for you chemist fellows are always 
poking about your kitchens, which must end by spoiling 
your constitutions. Now just look at me. I get up 
every day at four o’clock; I shave with cold water (and 
am never cold). I don’t wear flannels, and I never 
catch cold; my carcass is good enough! I live now in 
one way, now in another, like a philosopher, taking pot- 
luck; that is why I am not squeamish like you, and it 

[231 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


is as indifferent to me to carve a Christian as the first 
fowl that turns up. Then, perhaps, you will say, habit! 
habit!” 

Then, without any consideration for Hippolyte, who 
was sweating with agony between his sheets, these gentle- 
men entered into a conversation, in which the druggist 
compared the coolness of a surgeon to that of a general; 
and this comparison was pleasing to Canivet, who 
launched out on the exigencies of his art. He looked 
upon it as a sacred office, although the ordinary practi- 
tioners dishonoured it. At last, coming back to the 
patient, he examined the bandages brought by Homais, 
the same that had appeared for the club-foot, and asked 
for someone to hold the limb for him. Lestiboudois was 
sent for, and Monsieur Canivet having turned up his 
sleeves, passed into the billiard-room, while the druggist 
stayed with Artemise and the landlady, both whiter than 
their aprons, and with ears strained towards the door. 

Bovary during this time did not dare to stir from his 
house. 

He kept downstairs in the sitting-room by the side 
of the fireless chimney, his chin on his breast, his hands 
clasped, his eyes staring. “What a mishap!” he thought, 
“what a mishap!” Perhaps, after all, he had made sopie 
slip. He thought it over, but could hit upon nothing. 
But the most famous surgeons also made mistakes; 
and that is what no one would ever believe! People, 
on the contrary, would laugh, jeer! It would spread as 
far as Forges, as Neufchatel, as Rouen, everywhere! 
Who could say if his colleagues would not write against 
him. Polemics would ensue; he would have to answer 
in the papers. Hippolyte might even prosecute him. 

[232] 


MADAME BOVARY 


He saw himself dishonoured, ruined, lost; and his imagi- 
nation, assailed by a world of hypotheses, tossed amongst 
them like an empty cask borne by the sea and floating 
upon the waves. 

Emma, opposite, watched him; she did not share his 
humiliation; she felt another — that of having supposed 
such a man was worth anything. As if twenty times 
already she had not sufficiently perceived his mediocrity. 

Charles was walking up and down the room; his 
boots creaked on the floor. 

“Sit down,” she said; “you fidget me.” 

He sat down again. 

How was it that she — she, who was so intelligent — 
could have allowed herself to be deceived again? and 
through what deplorable madness had she thus ruined 
her life by continual sacrifices? She recalled all her 
instincts of luxury, all the privations of her soul, the 
sordidness of marriage, of the household, her dream 
sinking into the mire like wounded swallows; all that she 
had longed for, all that she had denied herself, all that 
she might have had! And for what? for what? 

In the midst of the silence that hung over the village 
a heart-rending cry rose on the air. Bovary turned white 
to fainting. She knit her brows with a nervous gesture, 
then went on. And it was for him, for this creature, 
for this man, who understood nothing, who felt nothing! 
For he was there quite quiet, not even suspecting that the 
ridicule of his name would henceforth sully hers as well 
as his. She had made efforts to love him, and she had 
repented with tears for having yielded to another! 

“But it was perhaps a valgus!” suddenly exclaimed 
Bovary, who was meditating. 

[233] 




MADAME BOVARY 


At the unexpected shock of this phrase falling on her 
thought like a leaden bullet on a silver plate, Emma, 
shuddering, raised her head in order to find out what he 
meant to say; and they looked at the other in silence, 
almost amazed to see each other, so far sundered were 
they by their inner thoughts. Charles gazed at her 
with the dull look of a drunken man, while he listened 
motionless to the last cries of the sufferer, that followed 
each other in long-drawn modulations, broken by sharp 
spasms like the far-off howling of some beast being 
slaughtered. Emma bit her wan lips, and rolling be- 
tween her fingers a piece of coral that she had broken, 
fixed on Charles the burning glance of her eyes like two 
arrows of fire about to dart forth. Everything in him 
irritated her now; his face, his dress, what he did not 
say, his whole person, his existence, in fine. She repented 
of her past virtue as of a crime, and what still remained 
of it crumbled away beneath the furious blows of her 
pride. She revelled in all the evil ironies of triumphant 
adultery. The memory of her lover came back to her 
with dazzling attractions; she threw her whole soul 
into it, borne away towards this image with a fresh 
enthusiasm; and Charles seemed to her as much re- 
moved from her life, as absent forever, as impossible 
and annihilated, as if he had been about to die and 
were passing under her eyes. 

There was a sound of steps on the pavement. Charles 
looked up, and through the lowered blinds he saw at the 
corner of the market in the broad sunshine Dr. Canivet, 
who was wiping his brow with his handkerchief. Homais, 
behind him, was carrying a large red box in his hand, 
and both were going towards the chemist’s. 

[234] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Then with a feeling of sudden tenderness and dis- 
couragement Charles turned to his wife saying to her — 

“Oh, kiss me, my own!” 

“Leave me!” she said, red with anger. 

“What is the matter?” he asked, stupefied. “Be 
calm; compose yourself. You know well enough that 
I love you. Come!” 

“Enough!” she cried with a terrible look. 

And escaping from the room, Emma closed the door 
so violently that the barometer fell from the wall and 
smashed on the floor. 

Charles sank back into his arm-chair overwhelmed, 
trying to discover what could be wrong with her, fancying 
some nervous illness, weeping, and vaguely feeling 
something fatal and incomprehensible whirling round 
him. 

When Rodolphe came to the garden that evening, he 
found his mistress waiting for him at the foot of the steps 
on the lowest stair. They threw their arms round one 
another, and all their rancour melted like snow beneath 
the warmth of that kiss. 


[235] 


XII 


1EY began to love one another again. Often, even 



1 in the middle of the day, Emma suddenly wrote 
to him, then from the window made a sign to Justin, 
who, taking his apron off, quickly ran to La Huchette. 
Rodolphe would come; she had sent for him to tell him 
that she was bored, that her husband was odious, her 
life frightful. 

“But what can I do?” he cried one day impatiently. 

“Ah! if you would ” 

She was sitting on the floor between his knees, her hair 
loose, her look lost. 

“Why, what?” said Rodolphe. 

She sighed. 

“We would go and live elsewhere — somewhere!” 

“You are really mad!” he said laughing. “How could 
that be possible?” 

She returned to the subject; he pretended not to under- 
stand, and turned the conversation. 

What he did not understand was all this worry about 
so simple an affair as love. She had a motive, a reason, 
and, as it were, a pendant to her affection. 

Her tenderness, in fact, grew each day with her repul- 
sion to her husband. The more she gave up herself to 
the one, the more she loathed the other. Never had 
Charles seemed to her so disagreeable, to have such 
stodgy fingers, such vulgar ways, to be so dull as when 


[236] 


MADAME BOVARY 


they found themselves together after her meeting with 
Rodolphe. Then, while playing the spouse and virtue, 
she was burning at the thought of that head whose black 
hair fell in a curl over the sunburnt brow, of that form 
at once so strong and elegant, of that man, in a word, 
who had such experience in his reasoning, such passion 
in his desires. It was for him that she filed her nails 
with the care of a chaser, and that there was never 
enough cold-cream for her skin, nor of patchouli for her 
handkerchiefs. She loaded herself with bracelets, rings, 
and necklaces. When he was coming she filled the 
two large blue glass vases with roses, and prepared her 
room and her person like a courtesan expecting a prince. 
The servant had to be constantly washing linen, and all 
day Felicite did not stir from the kitchen, where little 
Justin, who often kept her company, watched her at work. 

With his elbows on the long board on which she was 
ironing, he greedily watched all these women’s clothes 
spread about him, the dimity petticoats, the fichus, 
the collars, and the drawers with running strings, wide at 
the hips and growing narrower below. 

“What is that for?” asked the young fellow, passing his 
hand over the crinoline or the hooks and eyes. 

“Why, haven’t you ever seen anything?” Felicite 
answered laughing. “As if your mistress, Madame 
Homais, didn’t wear the same.” 

“Oh, I daresay! Madame Homais!” And he added with 
a meditative air, “As if she were a lady like madame!” 

But Felicite grew impatient of seeing him hanging 
round her. She was six years older than he, and Theo- 
dore, Monsieur Guillaumin’s servant, was beginning to 
pay court to her. 


[237] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Let me alone,” she said, moving her pot of starch. 
“You’d better be off and pound almonds; you are always 
dangling about women. Before you meddle with such 
things, bad boy, wait till you’ve got a beard to your 
chin.” 

“Oh, don’t be cross! I’ll go and clean her boots.” 

And he at once took down from the shelf Emma’s 
boots, all coated with mud, the mud of the rendezvous, 
that crumbled into powder beneath his fingers, and that 
he watched as it gently rose in a ray of sunlight. 

“How afraid you are of spoiling them!” said the 
servant, who wasn’t so particular when she cleaned them 
herself, because as soon as the stuff of the boots was 
no longer fresh madame handed them over to her. v 

Emma had a number in her cupboard that she squan- 
dered one after the other, without Charles allowing 
himself the slightest observation. So also he disbursed 
three hundred francs for a wooden leg that she thought 
proper to make a present of to Hippolyte. Its top was 
covered with cork, and it had spring joints, ^a compli- 
cated mechanism, covered over by black trousers ending 
in a patent-leather boot. But Hippolyte, not daring to use 
such a handsome leg every day, begged Madame Bovary 
to get him another more convenient one. The doctor, of 
course, had again to defray the expense of this purchase. 

So little by little the stable-man took up his work 
again. One saw him running about the village as before, 
and when Charles heard from afar the sharp noise of 
the wooden leg, he at once went in another direction. 

It was Monsieur Lheureux, the shopkeeper, who had 
undertaken the order; this provided him with an excuse 
for visiting Emma. He chatted with her about the new 
[238] 


MADAME BOVARY 


goods from Paris, about a thousand feminine trifles, made 
himself very obliging, and never asked for his money. 
Emma yielded to this lazy mode of satisfying all her 
caprices. Thus she wanted to have a very handsome 
riding-whip that was at an umbrella-maker’s at Rouen to 
give to Rodolphe. The week after Monsieur Lheureux 
placed it on her table. 

But the next day he called on her with a bill for two 
hundred and seventy francs, not counting the centimes. 
Emma was much embarrassed; all the drawers of the 
writing-table were empty; they owed over a fortnight’s 
wages to Lestiboudois, two quarters to the servant, 
for any quantity of other things, and Bovary was im- 
patiently expecting Monsieur Derozeray’s account, which 
he was in the habit of paying every year about Mid- 
summer. 

She succeeded at first in putting off Lheureux. At 
last he lost patience; he was being sued; his capital 
was out, and unless he got some in he should be forced 
to take back all the goods she had received. 

“Oh, very well, take them!” said Emma. 

“I was only joking,” he replied; “the only thing I 
regret is the whip. My word! I’ll ask monsieur to 
return it to me.” 

“No, no!” she said. 

“Ah! I’ve got you!” thought Lheureux. 

And, certain of his discovery, he went out repeating 
to himself in an undertone, and with his usual low 
whistle — 

“Good! we shall see! we shall see!” 

She was thinking how to get out of this when the 
servant coming in put on the mantelpiece a small roll 

C239] 


MADAME BOVARY 


of blue paper “from Monsieur Derozeray’s.” Emma 
pounced upon and opened it. It contained fifteen napo- 
leons; it was the account. She heard Charles on the 
stairs; threw the gold to the back of her drawer, and 
took out the key. 

Three days after Lheureux reappeared. 

“I have an arrangement to suggest to you,” he said. 
“If, instead of the sum agreed on, you would take ” 

“Here it is,” she said placing fourteen napoleons in his 
hand. 

The tradesman was dumbfoundered. Then, to con- 
ceal his disappointment, he was profuse in apologies 
and proffers of service, all of which Emma declined; 
then she remained a few moments fingering in the pocket 
of her apron the two five-franc pieces that he had given 
her in change. She promised herself she would econo- 
mise in order to pay back later on. “Pshaw!” she 
thought, “he won’t think about it again.” 

Besides the riding-whip with its silver-gilt^ handle, 
Rodolphe had received a seal with the motto Amor nel 
cor ; furthermore, a scarf for a muffler, and, finally, a 
cigar-case exactly like the Viscount’s, that Charles had 
formerly picked up in the road, and that Emma had kept. 
These presents, however, humiliated him; he refused 
several; she insisted, and he ended by obeying, thinking 
her tyrannical and over-exacting. 

Then she had strange ideas. 

“When midnight strikes,” she said, “you must think 
of me.” 

And if he confessed that he had not thought of her, 
there were floods of reproaches that always ended with 
the eternal question — 


[240] 


MADAME BOVARY 

“Do you love me?” 

“Why, of course I love you,” he answered. 

“A great deal?” 

“Certainly!” 

“You haven’t loved any others?” 

“Did you think you’d got a virgin?” he exclaimed 
laughing. 

Emma cried, and he tried to console her, adorning 
his protestations with puns. 

“Oh,” she went on, “I love you! I love you so that 
I could not live without you, do you see? There are 
times when I long to see you again, when I am torn by 
all the anger of love. I ask myself, Where is he? Per- 
haps he is talking to other women. They smile upon 
him; he approaches. Oh no; no one else pleases you. 
There are some more beautiful, but I love you best. 
I know how to love best. I am your servant, your con- 
cubine! You are my king, my idol! You are good, 
you are beautiful, you are clever, you are strong!” 

He had so often heard these things said that they did 
not strike him as original. Emma was like all his mis- 
tresses; and the charm of novelty, gradually falling 
away like a garment, laid bare the eternal monotony 
of passion, that has always the same forms and the same 
language. He did not distinguish, this man of so much 
experience, the difference of sentiment beneath the sane- 
ness of expression. Because lips libertine and venal 
had murmured such words to him, he believed but little 
in the candour of hers; exaggerated speeches hiding 
mediocre affections must be discounted; as if the ful- 
ness of the soul did not sometimes overflow in the emptiest 
metaphors, since no one can ever give the exact measure 

[ 241 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


of his needs, nor of his conceptions, nor of his sorrows; 
and since human speech is like a cracked tin kettle, on 
which we hammer out tunes to make tears dance when 
we long to move the stars. 

But with that superior critical judgment that belongs 
to him who, in no matter what circumstance, holds 
back, Rodolphe saw other delights to be got out of this 
love. He thought all modesty in the way. He treated 
her quite sans Jagon. He made of her something supple 
and corrupt. Hers was an idiotic sort of attachment, 
full of admiration for him, of voluptuousness for her, 
a beatitude that benumbed her; her soul sank into this 
drunkenness, shrivelled up, drowned in it, like Clarence 
in his butt of Malmsey. 

By the mere effect of her love Madame Bovary’s man- 
ners changed. Her looks grew bolder, her speech more 
free; she even committed the impropriety of walking out 
with Monsieur Rodolphe, a cigarette in her mouth, “as 
if to defy the people.” At last, those who still doubted 
doubted no longer when one day they saw her getting out 
of the “Hirondelle,” her waist squeezed into a waistcoat 
like a man; and Madame Bovary senior, who, after a 
fearful scene with her husband, had taken refuge at her 
son’s, was not the least scandalised of the women-folk. 
Many other things displeased her. First, Charles had 
~ not attended to her advice about the forbidding of 
novels; then the “ways of the house” annoyed her; she 
allowed herself to make some remarks, and there were 
quarrels, especially one on account of Felicite. 

Madam Bovary senior, the evening before, passing 
along the passage, had surprised her in company of a 
man — a man with a brown collar, about forty years 

C 242 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


old, who, at the sound of her step, had quickly escaped 
through the kitchen. Then Emma began to laugh, 
but the good lady grew angry, declaring that unless 
morals were to be laughed at one ought to look after 
those of one’s servants. 

“Where were you brought up?” asked the daughter- 
in-law, with so impertinent a look that Madame Bovary 
asked her if she were not perhaps defending her own case. 

“Leave the room!” said the young woman, springing 
up with a bound. 

“Emma! Mamma!” cried Charles, trying to recon- 
cile them. 

But both had fled in their exasperation. Emma was 
stamping her feet as she repeated — 

“Oh! what manners! What a peasant!” 

He ran to his mother; she was beside herself. She 
stammered — 

“She is an insolent, giddy-headed thing, or perhaps 
worse!” 

And she was for leaving at once if the other did not 
apologise. 

So Charles went back again to his wife and implored 
her to give way; he knelt to her; she ended by saying — 

“Very well! I’ll go to her.” 

And in fact she held out her hand to her mother-in- 
law with the dignity of a marchioness as she said — 

“Excuse me, madame.” 

Then, having gone up again to her room, she threw 
herself flat on her bed and cried there like a child, her 
face buried in the pillow. 

She and Rodolphe had agreed that in the event of 
anything extraordinary occurring, she should fasten a 

[243 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


small piece of white paper to the blind, so that if by 
chance he happened to be in Yonville, he could hurry 
to the lane behind the house. Emma made the signal; 
she had been waiting three-quarters of an hour when 
she suddenly caught sight of Rodolphe at the corner of 
the market. She felt tempted to open the window and 
call him, but he had already disappeared. She fell 
back in despair. 

Soon, however, it seemed to her that someone was 
walking on the pavement. It was he, no doubt. She 
went downstairs, crossed the yard. He was there out- 
side. She threw herself into his arms. 

“Do take care!” he said. 

“Ah! if you knew!” she replied. 

And she began telling him everything, hurriedly, dis- 
jointedly, exaggerating the facts, inventing many, and so 
prodigal of parentheses that he understood nothing of it. 

“Come, my poor angel, courage! Be comforted! 
be patient!” 

“But I have been patient; I have suffered for four 
years. A love like ours ought to show itself in the face 
of heaven. They torture me! I can bear it no longer! 
Save me!” 

She clung to Rodolphe. Her eyes, full of tears, flashed 
like flames beneath a wave; her breast heaved; he had 
never loved her so much, so that he lost his head and 
said — 

“What is it? What do you wish?” 

“Take me away,” she cried, “carry me off! Oh, 

I pray you!” 

And she threw herself upon his mouth, as if to seize 
there the unexpected consent if breathed forth in a kiss. 

[ 244] 


MADAME BOVARY 

“But ” Rodolphe resumed. 

“What?” 

“Your little girl!” 

She reflected a few moments, then replied — 

“We will take her! It can’t be helped!” 

“What a woman!” he said to himself, watching her as 
she went. For she had run into the garden. Someone 
was calling her. 

On the following days Madame Bovary senior was 
much surprised at the change in her daughter-in-law. 
Emma, in fact, was showing herself more docile, and 
even carried her deference so far as to ask for a recipe for 
pickling gherkins. 

Was it the better to deceive them both? Or did she 
wish by a sort of voluptuous stoicism to feel the more 
profoundly the bitterness of the things she was about 
to leave? 

But she paid no heed to them; on the contrary, she 
lived as lost in the anticipated delight of her coming 
happiness. It was an eternal subject for conversation 
with Rodolphe. She leant on his shoulder murmuring — 

“Ah! when we are in the mail-coach! Do you think 
about it? Can it be? It seems to me that the moment 
1 feel the carriage start, it will be as if we were rising in 
a balloon, as if we were setting out for the clouds. Do 
you know that I count the hours? And you?” 

Never had Madame Bovary been so beautiful as at 
this period; she had that indefinable beauty that results 
from joy, from enthusiasm, from success, and that is 
only the harmony of temperament with circumstances. 
Her desires, her sorrows, the experience of pleasure, and 
her ever-young illusions, that had, as soil and rain and 

[245] 


MADAME BO VARY 


winds and the sun make flowers grow, gradually de- 
veloped her, and she at length blossomed forth in all 
the plenitude of her nature. Her eyelids seemed chis- 
elled expressly for her long amorous looks in which the 
pupil disappeared, while a strong inspiration expanded 
her delicate nostrils and raised the fleshy corner of her 
lips, shaded in the light by a little black down. One 
would have thought that an artist apt in conception had 
arranged the curls of hair upon her neck; they fell in 
a thick mass, negligently, and with the changing chances 
of their adultery, that unbound them every day. Her 
voice now took more mellow inflections, her figure also; 
something subtle and penetrating escaped even from the 
folds of her gown and from the line of her foot. Charles, 
as when they were first married, thought her delicious 
and quite irresistible. 

When he came home in the middle of the night, he 
did not dare to wake her. The porcelain night-light 
threw a round trembling gleam upon the ceiling, and the 
drawn curtains of the little cot formed as it were a white 
hut standing out in the shade, and by the bedside Charles 
looked at them. He seemed to hear the light breathing 
of his child. She would grow big now; every season 
would bring rapid progress. He already saw her coming 
from school as the day drew in, laughing, with ink-stains 
on her jacket, and carrying her basket on her arm. Then 
she would have to be sent to the boarding-school; 
that would cost much; how was it to be done? Then 
he reflected. He thought of hiring a small farm in the 
neighbourhood, that he would superintend every morning 
on his way to his patients. He would save up what he 
brought in; he would put it in the savings-bank. Then 
[246] 


MADAME BOVARY 


he would buy shares somewhere, no matter where; 
besides, his practice would increase; he counted upon 
that, for he wanted Berthe to be well-educated, to be 
accomplished, to learn to play the piano. Ah! how 
pretty she would be later on when she was fifteen, when, 
resembling her mother, she would, like her, wear large 
straw hats in the summer-time; from a distance they 
would be taken for two sisters. He pictured her to 
himself working in the evening by their side beneath the 
light of the lamp; she would embroider him slippers; 
she would look after the house; she would fill all the 
home with her charm and her gaiety. At last, they 
would think of her marriage; they would find her some 
good young fellow with a steady business; he would 
make her happy; this would last for ever. 

Emma was not asleep; she pretended to be; and while 
he dozed off by her side she awakened to other dreams. 

To the gallop of four horses she was carried away for 
a week towards a new land, whence they would return 
no more. They went on and on, their arms entwined, 
without a word. Often from the top of a mountain 
there suddenly glimpsed some splendid city with domes, 
and bridges, and ships, forests of citron trees, and cathe- 
drals of white marble, on whose pointed steeples were 
storks’ nests. They went at a walking-pace because of 
the great flag-stones, and on the ground there were 
bouquets of flowers, offered you by women dressed in 
red bodices. They heard the chiming of bells, the 
neighing of mules, together with the murmur of guitars 
and the noise of fountains, whose rising spray refreshed 
heaps of fruit arranged like a pyramid at the foot of pale 
statues that smiled beneath playing waters. And then, 

[247] 


MADAME BOVARY 


one night they came to a fishing village, where brown 
nets were drying in the wind along the cliffs and in front 
of the huts. It was there that they would stay; they 
would live in a low, flat-roofed house, shaded by a palm- 
tree, in the heart of a gulf, by the sea. They would row 
in gondolas, swing in hammocks, and their existence 
would be easy and large as their silk gowns, warm and 
star-spangled as the nights they would contemplate. 
However, in the immensity of this future that she con- 
jured up, nothing special stood forth; the days, all 
magnificent, resembled each other like waves; and it 
swayed in the horizon, infinite, harmonised, azure, and 
bathed in sunshine. But the child began to cough in her 
cot or Bovary snored more loudly, and Emma did not 
fall asleep till morning, when the dawn whitened the 
windows, and when little Justin was already in the square 
taking down the shutters of the chemist’s shop. 

She had sent for Monsieur Lheureux, and had said 
to him — 

“ I want a cloak — a large lined cloak with a deep 
collar.” 

“You are going on a journey?” he asked. 

“No; but — never mind. I may count on you, 
may I not, and quickly?” 

He bowed. 

“Besides, I shall want,” she went on, “a trunk — not 
too heavy — handy.” 

“Yes, yes, I understand. About three feet by a foot 
and a half, as they are being made just now.” 

“And a travelling bag.” 

“Decidedly,” thought Lheureux, “there’s a row on 
here.” 


[248] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“And,” said Madame Bovary, taking her watch 
from her belt, “take this; you can pay yourself out of 
it.” 

But the tradesman cried out that she was wrong; 
they knew one another; did he doubt her? What 
childishness! 

She insisted, however, on his taking at least the chain, 
and Lheureux had already put it in his pocket and was 
going, when she called him back. 

“ You will leave everything at your place. As to the 
cloak” — she seemed to be reflecting — “do not bring 
it either; you can give me the maker’s address, and tell 
him to have it ready for me.” 

It was the next month that they were to run away. 
She was to leave Yonville as if she was going on some 
business to Rouen. Rodolphe would have booked the 
seats, procured the passports, and even have written to 
Paris in order to have the whole mail-coach reserved 
for them as far as Marseilles, where they would buy a 
carriage, and go on thence without stopping to Genoa. 
She would take care to send her luggage to Lheureux’, 
whence it would be taken direct to the “Hirondelle,” 
so that no one would have any suspicion. And in all 
this there never was any allusion to the child. Rodolphe 
avoided speaking of her; perhaps he no longer thought 
about it. 

He wished to have two more weeks before him to ar- 
range some affairs; then at the end of a week he wanted 
two more; then he said he was ill; next he went on a 
journey. The month of August passed, and, after all 
these delays, they decided that it was to be irrevocably 
fixed for the 4th September — a Monday. 

[ 249] 


MADAME BOVARY 

At length the Saturday before arrived. 

Rodolphe came in the evening earlier than usual. 

“Everything is ready?” she asked him. 

“Yes.” 

Then they walked round a garden-bed, and went to 
sit down near the terrace on the kerb-stone of the wall. 

“You are sad,” said Emma. 

“No; why?” 

And yet he looked at her strangely in a tender 
fashion. 

“Is it because you are going away?” she went on; 
“because you are leaving what is dear to you — your 
life? Ah! I understand. I have nothing in the world! 
you are all to me; so shall I be to you. I will be your 
people, your country; I will tend, I will love you!” 

“How sweet you are!” he said, seizing her in his 
arms. 

“Really!” she said with a voluptuous laugh. “Do 
you love me? Swear it then!” 

“Do I love you — love you? I adore you, my love.” 

The moon, full and purple-coloured, was rising right 
out of the earth at the end of the meadow. She rose 
quickly between the branches of the poplars, that hid 
her here and there like a black curtain pierced with holes. 
Then she appeared dazzling with whiteness in the empty 
heavens that she lit up, and now sailing more slowly 
along, let fall upon the river a great stain that broke 
up into an infinity of stars; and the silver sheen seemed 
to writhe through the very depths like a headless serpent 
covered with luminous scales; it also resembled some 
monster candelabra all along which sparkled drops of 
diamonds running together. The soft night was about 
[250] 


MADAME BOVARY 


them; masses of shadow filled the branches. Emma, 
her eyes half closed, breathed in with deep sighs the 
fresh wind that was blowing. They did not speak, 
lost as they were in the rush of their reverie. The tender- 
ness of the old days came back to their hearts, full and 
silent as the flowing river, with the softness of the per- 
fume of the syringas, and threw across their memories 
shadows more immense and more sombre than those of 
the still willows that lengthened out over the grass. 
Often some night-animal, hedgehog or weasel, setting 
out on the hunt, disturbed the lovers, or sometimes 
they heard a ripe peach falling all alone from the 
espalier. 

“Ah! what a lovely night!” said Rodolphe. 

“We shall have others,” replied Emma; and, as if 
speaking to herself: “Yet, it will be good to travel. 
And yet, why should my heart be so heavy? Is it dread 
of the unknown? The effect of habits left? Or 
rather — ? No; it is the excess of happiness. How 
weak I am, am I not? Forgive me!” 

“There is still time!” he cried. “Reflect! perhaps 
you may repent!” 

“Never!” she cried impetuously. And coming closer 
to him: “What ill could come to me? There is no 
desert, no precipice, no ocean I would not traverse with 
you. The longer we live together the more it will be 
like an embrace, every day closer, more heart to heart. 
There will be nothing to trouble us, no cares, no obstacle. 
We shall be alone, all to ourselves eternally. Oh, speak! 
Answer me!” 

At regular intervals he answered, “Yes — Yes — ” 
She had passed her hands through his hair, and she 
[251 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


repeated in a childlike voice, despite the big tears which 
were falling, “Rodolphe! Rodolphe! Ah! Rodolphe! 
dear little Rodolphe !” 

Midnight struck. 

“Midnight!” said she. “Come, it is to-morrow. 
One day more!” 

He rose to go; and as if the movement he made had 
been the signal for their flight, Emma said, suddenly 
assuming a gay air — 

“You have the passports?” 

“Yes.” 

“You are forgetting nothing?” 

“No.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Certainly.” 

“It is at the Hotel de Provence, is it not, that you 
will wait for me at mid-day?” 

He nodded. 

“Till to-morrow then!” said Emma in a last caress; 
and she watched him go. 

He did not turn round. She ran after him, and, 
leaning over the water’s edge between the bulrushes — 

“To-morrow!” she cried. 

He was already on the other side of the river and 
walking fast across the meadow. 

After a few moments Rodolphe stopped; and when 
he saw her with her white gown gradually fade away 
in the shade like a ghost, he was seized with such a beat- 
ing of the heart that he leant against a tree lest he should 
fall. 

“What an imbecile I am!” he said with a fearful 
oath. “No matter! She was a pretty mistress!” 

[252] 


MADAME BOVARY 


And immediately Emma’s beauty, with all the 
pleasures of their love, came back to him. For a moment 
he softened; then he rebelled against her. 

“For, after all,” he exclaimed, gesticulating, “I can’t 
exile myself — have a child on my hands.” 

He was saying these things to give himself firmness. 

“And besides, the worry, the expense! Ah! no, no, 
no, no! a thousand times no! That would be too 
stupid.” 


[253] 


XIII 


N O sooner was Rodolphe at home than he sat down 
quickly at his bureau under the stag’s head that 
hung as a trophy on the wall. But when he had the pen 
between his fingers, he could think of nothing, so that, 
resting on his elbows, he began to reflect. Emma seemed 
to him to have receded into a far-off past, as if the reso- 
lution he had taken had suddenly placed a distance be- 
tween them. 

To get back something of her, he fetched from the 
cupboard at the bedside an old Rheims biscuit-box, 
in which he usually kept his letters from women, and 
from it came an odour of dry dust and withered roses. 
First he saw a handkerchief with pale little spots. It 
was a handkerchief of hers. Once when they were 
walking her nose had bled; he had forgotten it. Near 
it, chipped at all the corners, was a miniature given him 
by Emma: her toilette seemed to him pretentious, and 
her languishing look in the worst possible taste. Then, 
from looking at this image and recalling the memory 
of its original, Emma’s features little by little grew 
confused in his remembrance, as if the living and the 
painted face, rubbing one against the other, had effaced 
each other. Finally, he read some of her letters; they 
w r ere full of explanations relating to their journey, short, 
technical, and urgent, like business notes. He wanted 

[254] 


MADAME BOVARY 


to see the long ones again, those of old times. In order 
to find them at the bottom of the box, Rodolphe disturbed 
all the others, and mechanically began rummaging 
amidst this mass of papers and things, finding pell-mell 
bouquets, garters, a black mask, pins, and hair — hair! 
dark and fair, some even, catching in the hinges of the 
box, broke when it was opened. 

Thus dallying with his souvenirs, he examined the 
writing and the style of the letters, as varied as their 
orthography. They were tender or jovial, facetious, 
melancholy; there were some that asked for love, others 
that asked for money. A word recalled faces to him, 
certain gestures, the sound of a voice; sometimes, 
however, he remembered nothing at all. 

In fact, these women, rushing at once into his thoughts, 
cramped each other and lessened, as reduced to a uniform 
level of love that equalised them all. So taking handfuls 
of the mixed-up letters, he amused himself for some 
moments with letting them fall in cascades from his 
right into his left hand. At last, bored and weary, 
Rodolphe took back the box to the cupboard, saying 
to himself, “What a lot of rubbish !” Which summed 
up his opinion; for pleasures, like schoolboys in a school 
courtyard, had so trampled upon his heart that no green 
thing grew there, and that which passed through it, more 
heedless than children, did not even, like them, leave a 
name carved upon the wall. 

“Come,” said he, “let’s begin.” 

He wrote — 


“Courage, Emma! courage! I would not bring misery 
into your life.” 

[ 255 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“After all, that's true," thought Rodolphe. “I am 
acting in her interest; I am honest." 

“Have you carefully weighed your resolution? Do 
you know to what an abyss I was dragging you, poor 
angel? No, you do not, do you? You were coming 
confident and fearless, believing in happiness in the 
future. Ah! unhappy that we are — insensate!" 

Rodolphe stopped here to think of some good excuse. 

“If I told her all my fortune is lost? No! Besides, 
that would stop nothing. It would all have to be begun 
over again later on. As if one could make women like 
that listen to reason!" He reflected, then went on — 

“I shall not forget you, oh! believe it; and I shall ever 
have a profound devotion for you; but some day, sooner 
or later, this ardour (such is the fate of human things) 
would have grown less, no doubt. Lassitude would have 
come to us, and who knows if I should not even have had 
the atrocious pain of witnessing your remorse, of sharing 
it myself, since I should have been its cause? The mere 
idea of the grief that would come to you tortures me, 
Emma. Forget me! Why did I ever know you? Why 
were you so beautiful? Is it my fault? 0 my God! 
No, no! Accuse only fate." 

“That's a word that always tells," he said to himself. 

“Ah, if you had been one of those frivolous women 
that one sees, certainly I might, through egotism, have 
tried an experiment, in that case without danger for 
you. But that delicious exaltation, at once your charm 
and your torment, has prevented you from understand- 
[256] 


MADAME BOVARY 


ing, adorable woman that you are, the falseness of our 
future position. Nor had I reflected upon this at first, 
and I rested in the shade of that ideal happiness as 
beneath that of the manchineel tree, without foreseeing 
the consequences.” 

“Perhaps she'll think I’m giving it up from avarice. 
Ah, well! so much the worse; it must be stopped!” 

“The world is cruel, Emma. Wherever we might 
have gone, it would have persecuted us. You would 
have had to put up with indiscreet questions, calumny, 
contempt, insult perhaps. Insult to you! Oh! And 
I, who would place you on a throne! I who bear with 
me your memory as a talisman! For I am going to 
punish myself by exile for all the ill I have done you. 
I am going away. Whither I know not. I am mad. 
Adieu! Be good always. Preserve the memory of the 
unfortunate who has lost you. Teach my name to your 
child; let her repeat it in her prayers.” 

The wicks of the candles flickered. Rodolphe got up 
to shut the window, and when he had sat down again — 

“I think it’s all right. Ah! and this for fear she should 
come and hunt me up.” 

“I shall be far away when you read these sad lines, 
for I have wished to flee as quickly as possible to shun 
the temptation of seeing you again. No weakness! 
I shall return, and perhaps later on we shall talk together 
very coldly of our old love. Adieu!” 

And there was a last “adieu” divided into two words! 
“A Dieu!” which he thought in very excellent taste. 

[ 257 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Now how am I to sign?” he said to himself. “‘Yours 
devotedly?* No! ‘Your friend?* Yes, that’s it.” 

“ Your friend.” 

He re-read his letter. He considered it very good. 

“Poor little woman!” he thought with emotion. 
“She’ll think me harder than a rock. There ought to 
have been some tears on this; but I can’t cry; it isn’t 
my fault.” Then, having emptied some water into a 
glass, Rodolphe dipped his finger into it, and let a big 
drop fall on the paper, that made a pale stain on the 
ink. Then looking for a seal, he came upon the one 
“Amor nel cor* 9 

“That doesn’t at all fit in with the circumstances. 
Pshaw! never mind!” 

After which he smoked three pipes and went to bed. 

The next day when he was up (at about two o’clock — 
he had slept late), Rodolphe had a basket of apricots 
picked. He put his letter at the bottom under some 
vine leaves, and at once ordered Girard, his ploughman, 
to take it with care to Madame Bovary. He made use 
of this means for corresponding with her, sending accord- 
ing to the season fruits or game. 

“If she asks after me,” he said, “you will tell her that 
I have gone on a journey. You must give the basket to her 
herself, into her own hands. Get along and take care!” 

Girard put on his new blouse, knotted his handker- 
chief round the apricots, and walking with great heavy 
steps in his thick iron-bound goloshes, made his way to 
Yonville. 

Madame Bovary, when he got to her house, was 
[258] 


MADAME BOVARY 


arranging a bundle of linen on the kitchen-table with 
Felicite. 

“Here,” said the ploughboy, “is something for you 
from the master.” 

She was seized with apprehension, and as she sought 
in her pocket for some coppers, she looked at the peasant 
with haggard eyes, while he himself looked at her with 
amazement, not understanding how such a present could 
so move anyone. At last he went out. Felicite re- 
mained. She could bear it no longer; she ran into the 
sitting room as if to take the apricots there, overturned 
the basket, tore away the leaves, found the letter, opened 
it, and, as if some fearful fire were behind her, Emma 
flew to her room terrified. 

Charles was there; she saw him; he spoke to her; 
she heard nothing, and she went on quickly up the 
stairs, breathless, distraught, dumb, and ever holding 
this horrible piece of paper, that crackled between her 
fingers like a plate of sheet-iron. On the second floor 
she stopped before the attic-door, which was closed. 

Then she tried to calm herself; she recalled the letter; 
she must finish it; she did not dare to. And where? 
How? She would be seen! “Ah, no! here,” she thought, 
“I shall be all right.” 

Emma pushed open the door and went in. 

The slates threw straight down a heavy heat that 
gripped her temples, stifled her; she dragged herself to 
the closed garret-window. She drew back the bolt, 
and the dazzling light burst in with a leap. 

Opposite, beyond the roofs, stretched the open country 
till it was lost to sight. Down below, underneath her, 
the village square was empty; the stones of the pave- 

[259] 


v 


MADAME BOVARY 


ment glittered, the weathercocks on the houses were 
motionless. At the corner of the street, from a lower 
storey, rose a kind of humming with strident modulations. 
It was Binet turning. 

She leant against the embrasure of the window, and 
re-read the letter with angry sneers. But the more she 
fixed her attention upon it, the more confused were her 
ideas. She saw him again, heard him, encircled him with 
her arms, and the throbs of her heart, that beat against 
her breast like blows of a sledge-hammer, grew faster and 
faster, with uneven intervals. She looked about her with 
the wish that the earth might crumble into pieces. Why 
not end it all? What restrained her? She was free. 
She advanced, looked at the paving-stones, saying to 
herself, “Come! come!” 

The luminous ray that came straight up from below 
drew the weight of her body towards the abyss. It 
seemed to her that the ground of the oscillating square 
went up the walls, and that the floor dipped on end like 
a tossing boat. She was right at the edge, almost hang- 
ing, surrounded by vast space. The blue of the heavens 
suffused her, the air was whirling in her hollow head; 
she had but to yield, to let herself be taken; and the 
humming of the lathe never ceased, like an angry voice 
calling her. 

“Emma! Emma!” cried Charles. 

She stopped. 

“Wherever are you? Come!” 

The thought that she had just escaped from death 
almost made her faint with terror. She closed her eyes; 
then she shivered at the touch of a hand on her sleeve; 
it was Felicite. 


[ 260 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“ Master is waiting for you, madame; the soup is on 
the table.” 

And she had to go down to sit at table. 

She tried to eat. The food choked her. Then she 
unfolded her napkin as if to examine the darns, and she 
really thought of applying herself to this work, counting 
the threads in the linen. Suddenly the remembrance 
of the letter returned to her. How had she lost it? 
Where could she find it? But she felt such weariness 
of spirit that she could not even invent a pretext for 
leaving the table. Then she became a coward; she 
was afraid of Charles; he knew all, that was certain! 
Indeed he pronounced these words in a strange manner: 

“We are not likely to see Monsieur Rodolphe soon 
again, it seems.” 

“Who told you?” she said, shuddering. 

“Who told me!” he replied, rather astonished at her 
abrupt tone. “Why, Girard, whom I met just now at 
the door of the Cafe-Frangais. He has gone on a jour- 
ney, or is to go.” 

She gave a sob. 

“What surprises you in that? He absents himself like 
that from time to time for a change, and ma Joi , I think 
he’s right, when one has a fortune and is a bachelor. Be- 
sides, he has jolly times, has our friend. He’s a bit of a 
rake. Monsieur Langlois told me ” 

He stopped for propriety’s sake because the servant 
came in. She put back into the basket the apricots 
scattered on the sideboard. Charles, without noticing 
his wife’s colour, had them brought to him, took one, 
and bit into it. 

“Ah! perfect!” said he; “just taste!” 

[261] 


MADAME BOVARY 


And he handed her the basket, which she put away 
from her gently. 

“Do just smell! What an odour!” he remarked, 
passing it under her nose several times. 

“I am choking,” she cried, leaping up. But by an 
effort of will the spasm passed; then 

“It is nothing,” she said, “it is nothing! It is ner- 
vousness. Sit down and go on eating.” For she dreaded 
lest he should begin questioning her, attending to her, 
that she should not be left alone. 

Charles, to obey her, sat down again, and he spat 
the stones of the apricots into his hands, afterwards 
putting them on his plate. 

Suddenly a blue tilbury passed across the square at 
a rapid trot. Emma uttered a cry and fell back rigid 
to the ground. 

In fact, Rodolphe, after many reflections, had decided 
to set out for Rouen. Now, as from La Huchette to 
Buchy there is no other way than by Yonville, he had to 
go through the village, and Emma had recognised him 
by the rays of the lanterns, which like lightning flashed 
through the twilight. 

The chemist, at the tumult which broke out in the 
house, ran thither. The table with all the plates was 
upset; sauce, meat, knives, the salt, and cruet-stand 
were strewn over the room; Charles was calling for 
help; Berthe, scared, was crying; and Felicite, whose 
hands trembled, was unlacing her mistress, whose whole 
body shivered convulsively. 

“ Til run to my laboratory for some aromatic vinegar,” 
said the druggist. 

Then as she opened her eyes on smelling the bottle — 
[ 262 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 

“I was sure of it,” he remarked; “that would wake 
any dead person for you!” 

“Speak to us,” said Charles; “collect yourself; it is 
I — your Charles, who loves you. Do you know me? 
See! here is your little girl! Oh, kiss her!” 

The child stretched out her arms to her mother to 
cling to her neck. But turning away her head, Emma 
said in a broken voice — 

“No, no! no one!” 

She fainted again. They carried her to her bed. 
She lay there stretched at full length, her lips apart, 
her eyelids closed, her hands open, motionless, and white 
as a waxen image. Two streams of tears flowed from 
her eyes and fell slowly upon the pillow. 

Charles, standing up, was at the back of the alcove, 
and the chemist, near him, maintained that meditative 
silence that is becoming on the serious occasions of life. 

“Do not be uneasy,” he said, touching his elbow; 
“I think the paroxysm is past.” 

“Yes, she is resting a little now,” answered Charles, 
watching her sleep. “Poor girl! poor girl! She has gone 
off now!” 

Then Homais asked how the accident had come about. 
Charles answered that she had been taken ill suddenly 
while she was eating some apricots. 

“Extraordinary!” continued the chemist. “But it 
might be that the apricots had brought on the syncope. 
Some natures are so sensitive to certain smells; and it 
would even be a very fine question to study both in its 
pathological and physiological relation. The priests know 
the importance of it, they who have introduced aro- 
matics into all their ceremonies. It is to stupefy the 
[263] 


MADAME BOVARY 


senses and to bring on ecstasies, — a thing, moreover, 
very easy in persons of the weaker sex, who are more 
delicate than the other. Some are cited who faint at the 
smell of burnt hartshorn, of new bread ” 

“Take care; you’ll wake her!” said Bovary in a low 
voice. 

“And not only,” the druggist went on, “are human 
beings subject to such anomalies, but animals also. 
Thus you are not ignorant of the singularly aphrodisiac 
effect produced by the Nepeta cataria , vulgarly called 
cat-mint, on the feline race; and, on the other hand, 
to quote an example whose authenticity I can answer 
for, Bridaux (one of my old comrades, at present estab- 
lished in the Rue Malpalu) possesses a dog that falls 
into convulsions as soon as you hold out a snuff-box 
to him. He often even makes the experiment before 
his friends at his summer-house at Guillaume Wood. 
Would anyone believe that a simple sternutation could 
produce such ravages on a quadrupedal organism? 
It is extremely curious, is it not?” 

“Yes,” said Charles, who was not listening to him. 

“This shows us,” went on the other, smiling with 
benign self-sufficiency, “the innumerable irregularities 
of the nervous system. With regard to madame, she 
has always seemed to me, I confess, very susceptible. 
And so I should by no means recommend to you, my 
dear friend, any of those so-called remedies that, under 
the pretence of attacking the symptoms, attack the con- 
stitution. No; no useless physicking! Diet, that is all; 
sedatives, emollients, dulcification. Then, don’t you think 
that perhaps her imagination should be worked upon?” 

“In what way? How?” said Bovary. 

[264] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Ah! that is it. Such is indeed the question. ‘That 
is the question/ as I lately read in a newspaper/* 

But Emma, awaking, cried out — 

“The letter! the letter !” 

They thought she was delirious; and she was by 
midnight. Brain-fever had set in. 

For forty-three days Charles did not leave her. He 
gave up all his patients; he no longer went to bed; he 
was constantly feeling her pulse, putting on sinapisms 
and cold-water compresses. He sent Justin as far as 
Neufchatel for ice; the ice melted on the way; he sent 
him back again. He called Monsieur Canivet into con- 
sultation; he sent for Dr. Lariviere, his old master, from 
Rouen; he was in despair. What alarmed him most 
was Emma’s prostration, for she did not speak, did not 
listen, did not even seem to suffer, as if her body and 
soul were both resting together after all their troubles. 

About the middle of October she could sit up in bed 
supported by pillows. Charles wept when he saw her 
eat her first bread-and- jelly. Her strength returned to 
her; she got up for a few hours of an afternoon, and one 
day, when she felt better, he tried to take her, leaning 
on his arm, for a walk round the garden. The sand 
of the paths was disappearing beneath the dead leaves; 
she walked slowly, dragging along her slippers, and 
leaning against Charles’s shoulder. She smiled all the 
time. 

They went thus to the bottom of the garden near the 
terrace. She drew herself up slowly, shading her eyes 
with her hand to look. She looked far off, as far as she 
could, but on the horizon were only great bonfires of 
grass smoking on the hills. 

[265] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“You will tire yourself, my darling!” said Bovary. 
And, pushing her gently to make her go into the arbour, 
“Sit down on this seat; you’ll be comfortable.” 

“Oh! no; not there!” she said in a faltering voice. 

She was seized with giddiness, and from that evening 
her illness recommenced, with a more uncertain character, 
it is true, and more complex symptoms. Now she 
suffered in her heart, then in the chest, the head, the 
limbs; she had vomitings, in which Charles thought 
he saw the first signs of cancer. 

And besides this, the poor fellow was worried about 
money matters. 


[266] 


XIV 


'T'O begin with, he did not know how he could pay 
* Monsieur Homais for all the physic supplied by him, 
and though, as a medical man, he was not obliged to 
pay for it, he nevertheless blushed a little at such an 
obligation. Then the expenses of the household, now 
that the servant was mistress, became terrible. Bills 
rained in upon the house; the tradesmen grumbled; 
Monsieur Lheureux especially harassed him. In fact, 
at the height of Emma’s illness, the latter, taking advan- 
tage of the circumstances to make his bill larger, had 
hurriedly brought the cloak, the travelling-bag, two 
trunks instead of one, and a number of other things. 
It was very well for Charles to say he did not want them. 
The tradesman answered arrogantly that these articles 
had been ordered, and that he would not take them 
back; besides, it would vex madame in her convalescence; 
the doctor had better think it over; in short, he was 
resolved to sue him rather than give up his rights and 
take back his goods. Charles subsequently ordered 
them to be sent back to the shop. Felicite forgot; 
he had other things to attend to; then thought no more 
about them. Monsieur Lheureux returned to the charge, 
and, by turns threatening and whining, so managed 
that Bovary ended by signing a bill at six months. But 
hardly had he signed this bill than a bold idea occurred 
to him : it was to borrow a thousand francs from Lheureux. 
[267] 


MADAME BOVARY 


So, with an embarrassed air, he asked if it were possible 
to get them, adding that it would be for a year, at any 
interest he wished. Lheureux ran off to his shop, brought 
back the money, and dictated another bill, by which 
Bovary undertook to pay to his order on the ist of Sep- 
tember next the sum of one thousand and seventy francs, 
which, with the hundred and eighty already agreed to, 
made just twelve hundred and fifty, thus lending at six 
per cent in addition to one-fourth for commission; and 
the things bringing him in a good third at the least, 
this ought in twelve months to give him a profit of a 
hundred and thirty francs. He hoped that the business 
would not stop there; that the bills would not be paid; 
that they would be renewed; and that his poor little 
money, having thriven at the doctor’s as at a hospital, 
would come back to him one day considerably more 
plump, and fat enough to burst his bag. 

Everything, moreover, succeeded with him. He was 
adjudicator for a supply of cider to the hospital at Neuf- 
chatel; Monsieur Guillaumin promised him some shares 
in the turf-pits of Gaumesnil, and he dreamt of establishing 
a new diligence service between Arcueil and Rouen, which 
no doubt would not be long in ruining the ramshackle 
van of the “Lion d’Or,” and that, travelling faster, at a 
cheaper rate, and carrying more luggage, would thus put 
into his hands the whole commerce of Yonville. 

Charles several times asked himself by what means 
he should next year be able to pay back so much money. 
He reflected, imagined expedients, such as applying to 
his father or selling something. But his father would be 
deaf, and he — he had nothing to sell. Then he foresaw 
such worries that he quickly dismissed so disagreeable 
[268] 


MADAME BOVARY 


a subject of meditation from his mind. He reproached 
himself with forgetting Emma, as if, all his thoughts 
belonging to this woman, it was robbing her of something 
not to be constantly thinking of her. 

The winter was severe, Madame Bovary’s convales- 
ence slow. When it was fine they wheeled her arm- 
chair to the window that overlooked the square, for she 
now had an antipathy to the garden, and the blinds on 
that side were always down. She wished the horse 
to be sold; what she formerly liked now displeased her. 
All her ideas seemed to be limited to the care of herself. 
She stayed in bed taking little meals, rang for the ser- 
vant to inquire about her gruel or to chat with her. 
The snow on the market-roof threw a white, still light 
into the room; then the rain began to fall; and Emma 
waited daily with a mind full of eagerness for the inevi- 
table return of some trifling events which nevertheless 
had no relation to her. The most important was the 
arrival of the “Hirondelle” in the evening. Then the 
landlady shouted out, and other voices answered, while 
Hippolyte’s lantern, as he fetched the boxes from the 
boot, was like a star in the darkness. At mid-day 
Charles came in; then he went out again; next she took 
some beef-tea, and towards five o’clock, as the day drew 
in, the children coming back from school, dragging their 
wooden shoes along the pavement, knocked the clapper 
of the shutters with their rulers one after the other. 

It was at this hour that Monsieur Bournisien came to 
see her. He inquired after her health, gave her news, 
exhorted her to religion, in a coaxing little prattle that 
was not without its charm. The mere thought of his 
cassock comforted her. 


[269] 


MADAME BOVARY 


One day, when at the height of her illness, she had 
thought herself dying, and had asked for the communion; 
and, while they were making the preparations in her room 
for the sacrament, while they were turning the night 
table covered with syrups into an altar, and while Felicite 
was strewing dahlia flowers on the floor, Emma felt some 
power passing over her that freed her from her pains, 
from all perception, from all feeling. Her body, relieved, 
no longer thought; another life was beginning; it seemed 
to her that her being, mounting toward God, would be 
annihilated in that love like a burning incense that 
melts into vapour. The bed-clothes were sprinkled 
with holy water, the priest drew from the holy pyx the 
white wafer; and it was fainting with a celestial joy 
that she put out her lips to accept the body of the Saviour 
presented to her. The curtains of the alcove floated 
gently round her like clouds, and the rays of the two 
tapers burning on the night-table seemed to shine like 
dazzling halos. Then she let her head fall back, fancy- 
ing she heard in space the music of seraphic harps, and 
perceived in an azure sky, on a golden throne in the midst 
of saints holding green palms, God the Father, resplendent 
with majesty, who with a sign sent to earth angels with 
wings of fire to carry her away in their arms. 

This splendid vision dwelt in her memory as the most 
beautiful thing that it was possible to dream, so that 
now she strove to recall her sensation, that still lasted, 
however, but in a less exclusive fashion and with a deeper 
sweetness. Her soul, tortured by pride, at length found 
rest in Christian humility, and, tasting the joy of weak- 
ness, she saw within herself the destruction of her will, 
that must have left a wide entrance for the inroads of 
C270] 


MADAME BOVARY 


heavenly grace. There existed, then, in the place of 
happiness, still greater joys, — another love beyond all 
loves, without pause and without end, one that would 
grow eternally! She saw amid the illusions of her hope 
a state of purity floating above the earth mingling with 
heaven, to which she aspired. She wanted to become a 
saint. She bought chaplets and wore amulets; she wished 
to have in her room, by the side of her bed, a reliquary 
set in emeralds that she might kiss it every evening. 

The cure marvelled at this humour, although Emma’s 
religion, he thought, might, from its fervour, end by 
touching on heresy, extravagance. But not being much 
versed in these matters, as soon as they went beyond 
a certain limit he wrote to Monsieur Boulard, book- 
seller to Monsignor, to send him 4 4 something good for a 
lady who was very clever.” The bookseller, with as 
much indifference as if he had been sending off hardware 
to niggers, packed up, pell-mell, everything that was then 
the fashion in the pious book trade. There were little 
manuals in questions and answers, pamphlets of ag- 
gressive tone after the manner of Monsieur de Maistre, 
and certain novels in rose-coloured bindings and with 
a honied style, manufactured by troubadour seminarists 
or penitent blue-stockings. There were the “Think of 
it; the Man of the World at Mary’s Feet, by Monsieur 
de * * *, decorated with many Orders”; “The Errors of 
Voltaire, for the Use of the Young,” etc. 

Madame Bovary’s mind was not yet sufficiently clear 
to apply herself seriously to anything; moreover, she 
began this reading in too much hurry. She grew pro- 
voked at the doctrines of religion; the arrogance of the 
polemic writings displeased her by their inveteracy in 
[271 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


attacking people she did not know; and the secular 
stories, relieved with religion, seemed to her written 
in such ignorance of the world, that they insensibly 
estranged her from the truths for whose proof she was 
looking. Nevertheless, she persevered; and when the 
volume slipped from her hands, she fancied herself seized 
with the finest Catholic melancholy that an ethereal 
soul could conceive. 

As for the memory of Rodolphe, she had thrust it 
back to the bottom of her heart, and it remained there 
more solemn and more motionless than a king’s mummy 
in a catacomb. An exhalation escaped from this em- 
balmed love, that, penetrating through everything, 
perfumed with tenderness the immaculate atmosphere 
in which she longed to live. When she knelt on her 
Gothic prie-Dieu, she addressed to the Lord the same 
suave words that she had murmured formerly to her 
lover in the outpourings of adultery. It was to make 
faith come; but no delights descended from the heavens, 
and she arose with tired limbs and with a vague feeling 
of a gigantic dupery. 

This searching after faith, she thought, was only one 
merit the more, and in the pride of her devoutness Emma 
compared herself to those grand ladies of long ago whose 
glory she had dreamed of over a portrait of La Valliere, 
and who, trailing with so much majesty the lace-trimmed 
trains of their long gowns, retired into solitudes to shed 
at the feet of Christ all the tears of hearts that life had 
wounded. 

Then she gave herself up to excessive charity. She 
sewed clothes for the poor, she sent wood to women in 

C 272 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


childbed; and Charles one day, on coming home, found 
three good-for-nothings in the kitchen seated at the 
table eating soup. She had her little girl, whom during 
her illness her husband had sent back to the nurse, 
brought home. She wanted to teach her to read; even 
when Berthe cried, she was not vexed. She had made up 
her mind to resignation, to universal indulgence. Her 
language about everything was full of ideal expressions. 
She said to her child, “Is your stomach-ache better, 
my angel?” 

Madame Bovary senior found nothing to censure 
except perhaps this mania of knitting jackets for orphans 
instead of mending her own house-linen; but, harrassed 
with domestic quarrels, the good woman took pleasure 
in this quiet house, and she even stayed there till after 
Easter, to escape the sarcasms of old Bovary, who never 
failed on Good Friday to order chitterlings. 

Besides the companionship of her mother-in-law, 
who strengthened her a little by the rectitude of her 
judgment and her grave ways, Emma almost every day 
had other visitors. These were Madame Langlois, 
Madame Caron, Madame Dubreuil, Madame Tuvache, 
and regularly from two to five o’clock the excellent 
Madame Homais, who, for her part, had never believed 
any of the tittle-tattle about her neighbour. The little 
Homais also came to see her; Justin accompanied them. 
He went up with them to her bedroom, and remained 
standing near the door, motionless and mute. Often 
even Madame Bovary, taking no heed of him, began her 
toilette. She began by taking out her comb, shaking 
her head with a quick movement, and when he for the 
first time saw all this mass of hair that fell to her knees 
C^73] 


MADAME BOVARY 


unrolling in black ringlets, it was to him, poor child! 
like a sudden entrance into something new and strange, 
whose splendour terrified him. 

Emma, no doubt, did not notice his silent attentions 
or his timidity. She had no suspicion that the love 
vanished from her life was there, palpitating by her side, 
beneath that coarse holland shirt, in that youthful 
heart open to the emanations of her beauty. Besides, 
she now enveloped all things with such indifference, 
she had words so affectionate with looks so haughty, 
such contradictory ways, that one could no longer dis- 
tinguish egotism from charity, or corruption from virtue. 
One evening, for example, she was angry with the ser- 
vant, who had asked to go out, and stammered as she 
tried to find some pretext. Then suddenly — 

“So you love him?” she said. 

And without waiting for any answer from Felicite, who 
was blushing, she added, “There! run along; enjoy 
yourself!” 

In the beginning of spring she had the garden turned 
up from end to end, despite Bovary’s remonstrances. 
However, he was glad to see her at last manifest a wish 
of any kind. As she grew stronger she displayed more 
wilfulness. First, she found occasion to expel Mere 
RoIIet, the nurse, who during her convalescence had 
contracted the habit of coming too often to the kitchen 
with her two nurslings and her boarder, better off for 
teeth than a cannibal. Then she got rid of the Homais 
family, successively dismissed all the other visitors, 
and even frequented church less assiduously, to the 
great approval of the druggist, who said to her in a 
friendly way — 


[274] 


MADAME BOVARY 

“You were going in a bit for the cassock!” 

As formerly, Monsieur Bournisien dropped in every 
day when he came out after catechism class. He pre- 
ferred staying out of doors to taking the air “in the 
grove,” as he called the arbour. This was the time when 
Charles came home. They were hot; some sweet cider 
was brought out, and they drank together to madame’s 
complete restoration. 

Binet was there; that is to say, a little lower down 
against the terrace wall, fishing for crayfish. Bovary 
invited him to have a drink, and he thoroughly under- 
stood the uncorking of the stone bottles. 

“You must,” he said, throwing a satisfied glance all 
round him, even to the very extremity of the landscape, 
“hold the bottle perpendicularly on the table, and after 
the strings are cut, press up the cork with little thrusts, 
gently, gently, as indeed they do seltzer-water at res- 
taurants.” 

But during his demonstration the cider often spurted 
right into their faces, and then the ecclesiastic, with a 
thick laugh, never missed this joke — 

“Its goodness strikes the eye!” 

He was in fact, a good fellow and one day he was 
not even scandalised at the chemist, who advised Charles 
to give madame some distraction by taking her to the 
theatre at Rouen to hear the illustrious tenor, Lagardy. 
Homais, surprised at this silence, wanted to know his 
opinion, and the priest declared that he considered 
music less dangerous for morals than literature. 

But the chemist took up the defence of letters. The 
theatre, he contended, served for railing at prejudices, 
and, beneath a mask of pleasure, taught virtue. 

[275 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Castigat ridendo mores , Monsieur Bournisien! Thus 
consider the greater part of Voltaire’s tragedies; they are 
cleverly strewn with philosophical reflections, that make 
them a very school of morals and diplomacy for the 
people.” 

“I,” said Binet, “once saw a piece called the ‘Gamin 
de Paris/ in which there was the character of an old 
general that is really hit off to a T. He sets down a 
young swell who had seduced a working girl, who at the 
ending ” 

“Certainly,” continued Homais, “there is bad liter- 
ature as there is bad pharmacy, but to condemn in a 
lump the most important of the fine arts seems to me 
a stupidity, a Gothic idea, worthy of the abominable 
times that imprisoned Galileo.” 

“I know very well,” objected the cure, “that there are 
good works, good authors. However, if it were only 
those persons of different sexes united in a bewitching 
apartment, decorated rouge, those lights, those effeminate 
voices, all this must, in the long-run, engender a certain 
mental Iibertinage, give rise to immodest thoughts and 
impure temptations. Such, at any rate, is the opinion 
of all the Fathers. Finally,” he added, suddenly assum- 
ing a mystic tone of voice while he rolled a pinch of snuff 
between his fingers, “ if the Church has condemned the 
theatre, she must be right; we must submit to her de- 
crees.” 

“ Why,”asked the druggist, “ should she excommunicate 
actors? For formerly they openly took part in religious 
ceremonies. Yes, in the middle of the chancel they acted; 
they performed a kind of farce called ‘Mysteries/ which 
often offended against the laws of decency.” 

[276] 


MADAME BOVARY 


The ecclesiastic contented himself with uttering a 
groan, and the chemist went on — 

“It’s like it is in the Bible; there there are, you 
know, more than one piquant detail, matters really 
libidinous !” 

And on a gesture of irritation from Monsieur Bour- 
nisien — 

“Ah! you’ll admit that it is not a book to place in 
the hands of a young girl, and I should be sorry if 
Athalie ” 

“But it is the Protestants, and not we,” cried the other 
impatiently, “who recommend the Bible.” 

“No matter,” said Homais. “I am surprised that in 
our days, in this century of enlightenment, anyone should 
still persist in proscribing an intellectual relaxation that 
is inoffensive, moralising, and sometimes even hygienic; 
is it not, doctor?” 

“No doubt,” replied the doctor carelessly, either 
because, sharing the same ideas, he wished to offend 
no one, or else because he had not any ideas. 

The conversation seemed at an end when the chemist 
thought fit to shoot a Parthian arrow. 

“I’ve known priests who put on ordinary clothes to go 
and see dancers kicking about.” 

“Come, come!” said the cure. 

“Ah! I’ve known some!” And separating the words 
of his sentence, Homais repeated, “I — have — known — 
some!” 

“Well, they were wrong,” said Bournisien, resigned 
to anything. 

“By Jove! they go in far more than that,” exclaimed 
the druggist. 

[277] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Sir!” replied the ecclesiastic, with such angry eyes 
that the druggist was intimidated by them. 

“I only mean to say,” he replied in less brutal a tone, 
“that toleration is the surest way to draw people to 
religion.” 

“That is true! that is true!” agreed the good fellow, 
sitting down again on his chair. But he stayed only 
a few moments. 

Then, as soon as he had gone, Monsieur Homais said 
to the doctor — 

“That’s what I call a cock-fight. I beat him, did you 
see, in a way! — Now take my advice. Take madame 
to the theatre, if it were only for once in your life, to 
enrage one of these ravens, hang it! If anyone could 
take my place, I would accompany you myself. Be 
quick about it. Lagardy is only going to give one 
performance; he’s engaged to go to England at a high 
salary. From what I hear, he’s a regular dog; he’s 
rolling in money; he’s taking three mistresses and a 
cook along with him. All these great artists burn the 
candle at both ends; they require a dissolute life, that 
suits the imagination to some extent. But they die 
at the hospital, because they haven’t the sense when 
young to lay by. Well, a pleasant dinner! Good-bye 
till to-morrow.” 

The idea of the theatre quickly germinated in Bovary’s 
head, for he at once communicated it to his wife, who at 
first refused, alleging the fatigue, the worry, the expense; 
but, for a wonder, Charles did not give in, so sure was 
he that this recreation would be good for her. He saw 
nothing to prevent it: his mother had sent them three 
hundred francs which he had no longer expected; the 
[278] 


MADAME BOVARY 


current debts were not very large, and the falling in of 
Lheureux’s bills was still so far off that there was no 
need to think about them. Besides, imagining that she 
was refusing from delicacy, he insisted the more; so 
that by dint of worrying her she at last made up her 
mind, and the next day at eight o’clock they set out in 
the “Hirondelle.” 

The druggist, whom nothing whatever kept at Yonville, 
but who thought himself bound not to budge from it, 
sighed as he saw them go. 

“Well, a pleasant journey!” he said to them; “happy 
mortals that you are!” 

Then addressing himself to Emma, who was wearing 
a blue silk gown with four flounces — 

“You are as lovely as a Venus. You’ll cut a figure 
at Rouen.” 

The diligence stopped at the “Croix-Rouge” in the 
Place Beauvoisine. It was the inn that is in every 
provincial faubourg, with large stables and small bed- 
rooms, where one sees in the middle of the court chickens 
pilfering the oats under the muddy gigs of the com- 
mercial travellers; — a good old house, with worm- 
eaten balconies that creak in the wind on winter nights, 
always full of people, noise, and feeding, whose black 
tables are sticky with coffee and brandy, the thick win- 
dows made yellow by the flies, the damp napkins stained 
with cheap wine, and that always smells of the village, 
like ploughboys dressed in Sunday-clothes, has a cafe 
on the street, and towards the countryside a kitchen- 
garden. Charles at once set out. He muddled up the 
stage-boxes with the gallery, the pit with the boxes; 
asked for explanations, did not understand them; was 

c 279] 


MADAME BOVARY 


sent from the box-office to the acting-manager; came 
back to the inn, returned to the theatre, and thus several 
times traversed the whole length of the town from the 
theatre to the boulevard. 

Madame Bovary bought a bonnet, gloves, and a 
bouquet. The doctor was much afraid of missing the 
beginning, and, without having had time to swallow a 
plate of soup, they presented themselves at the doors 
of the theatre, which were still closed. 


[280] 


XV 


'T'HE crowd was waiting against the wall, symmetrically 
* enclosed between the balustrades. At the corner 
of the neighbouring streets huge bills repeated in quaint 
letters “Lucie de Lammermoor — Lagardy — Opera — 
etc.” The weather was fine, the people were hot, per- 
spiration trickled amid the curls, and handkerchiefs 
taken from pockets were mopping red foreheads; and 
now and then a warm wind that blew from the river 
gently stirred the border of the tick awnings hanging 
from the doors of the public-houses. A little lower 
down, however, one was refreshed by a current of icy 
air that smelt of tallow, leather, and oil. This was an 
exhalation from the Rue des Charrettes, full of large 
black warehouses where they make casks. 

For fear of seeming ridiculous, Emma before going in 
wished to have a little stroll in the harbour, and Bovary 
prudently kept his tickets in his hand, in the pocket of 
his trousers, which he pressed against his stomach. 

Her heart began to beat as soon as she reached the ves- 
tibule. She involuntarily smiled with vanity on seeing 
the crowd rushing to the right by the other corridor while 
she went up the staircase to the reserved seats. She was 
as pleased as a child to push with her finger the large 
tapestried door. She breathed in with all her might the 
dusty smell of the lobbies, and when she was seated in 
her box she bent forward with the air of a duchess. 

[281 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


The theatre was beginning to fill; opera-glasses were 
taken from their cases, and the subscribers, catching 
sight of one another, were bowing. They came to seek 
relaxation in the fine arts after the anxieties of business; 
but “business” was not forgotten; they still talked 
cottons, spirits of wine, or indigo. The heads of old 
men were to be seen, inexpressive and peaceful, with their 
hair and complexions looking like silver medals tarnished 
by steam of lead. The young beaux were strutting 
about in the pit, showing in the opening of their waist- 
coats their pink or apple-green cravats, and Madame 
Bovary from above admired them leaning on their canes 
with golden knobs in the open palm of their yellow gloves. 

Now the lights of the orchestra were lit, the lustre, 
let down from the ceiling, throwing by the glimmering 
of its facets a sudden gaiety over the theatre; then the 
musicians came in one after the other; and first there 
was the protracted hubbub of the basses grumbling, 
violins squeaking, cornets trumpeting, flutes and flageo- 
lets fifing. But three knocks were heard on the stage, 
a rolling of drums began, the brass instruments played 
some chords, and the curtain rising, discovered a country- 
scene. 

It was the cross-roads of a wood, with a fountain shaded 
by an oak to the left. Peasants and lords with plaids 
on their shoulders were singing a hunting-song together; 
then a captain suddenly came on, who evoked the spirit 
of evil by lifting both his arms to heaven. Another 
appeared; they went away, and the hunters started afresh. 
She felt herself transported to the reading of her youth, 
into the midst of Walter Scott. She seemed to hear 
through the mist the sound of the Scotch bagpipes 
[ 282 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


re-echoing over the heather. Then her remembrance 
of the novel helping her to understand the libretto, she 
followed the story phrase by phrase, while vague thoughts 
that came back to her dispersed at once again with the 
bursts of music. She gave herself up to the lullaby of 
the melodies, and felt all her being vibrate as if the 
violin bows were drawn over her nerves. She had 
not eyes enough to look at the costumes, the scenery, 
the actors, the painted trees that shook when anyone 
walked, and the velvet caps, cloaks, swords — all those 
imaginary things that floated amid the harmony as in 
the atmosphere of another world. But a young woman 
stepped forward, throwing a purse to a squire in green. 
She was left alone, and the flute was heard like the 
murmur of a fountain or the warbling of birds. Lucie 
attacked her cavatina in G major bravely. She plained 
of love; she longed for wings. Emma, too, fleeing 
from life, would have liked to fly away in an embrace. 
Suddenly Edgar-Lagardy appeared. 

He had that splendid pallor that gives something of the 
majesty of marble to the ardent races of the South. 
His vigourous form was tightly clad in a brown-coloured 
doublet; a small chiselled poniard hung against his 
left thigh, and he cast round laughing looks showing 
his white teeth. They said that a Polish princess having 
heard him sing one night on the beach at Biarritz, where 
he mended boats, had fallen in love with him. She had 
ruined herself for him. He had deserted her for other 
women, and this sentimental celebrity did not fail to 
enhance his artistic reputation. The diplomatic mum- 
mer took care always to slip into his advertisements 
some poetic phrase on the fascination of his person and 
[283] 


MADAME BOVARY 


the susceptibility of his soul. A fine organ, imperturb- 
able coolness, more temperament than intelligence, more 
power of emphasis than of real singing, made up the 
charm of this admirable charlatan nature, in which there 
was something of the hairdresser and the toreador. 

From the first scene he evoked enthusiasm. He 
pressed Lucy in his arms, he left her, he came back, he 
seemed desperate; he had outbursts of rage, then elegaic 
gurglings of infinite sweetness, and the notes escaped 
from his bare neck full of sobs and kisses. Emma lent 
forward to see him, clutching the velvet of the box with 
her nails. She was filling her heart with these melodious 
lamentations that were drawn out to the accompani- 
ment of the double-basses, like the cries of the drowning 
in the tumult of a tempest. She recognised all the 
intoxication and the anguish that had almost killed 
her. The voice of the prima donna seemed to her to be 
but echoes of her conscience, and this illusion that charmed 
her as some very thing of her own life. But no one on 
earth had loved her with such love. He had not wept 
like Edgar that last moonlit night when they said, “To- 
morrow! to-morrow!” The theatre rang with cheers; 
they recommenced the entire movement; the lovers 
spoke of the flowers on their tomb, of vows, exile, fate, 
hopes; and when they uttered the final adieu, Emma 
gave a sharp cry that mingled with the vibrations of 
the last chords. 

“But why,” asked Bovary, “does that gentleman 
persecute her?” 

“No, no!” she answered; “he is her lover!” 

“Yet he vows vengeance on her family, while the other 
one who came on before said, ‘ I love Lucie and she loves 
[2843 


MADAME BOVARY 


me!’ Besides, he went off with her father arm in arm. 
For he certainly is her father, isn’t he — the ugly little 
man with a cock’s feather in his hat?” 

Despite Emma’s explanations, as soon as the recitative 
duet began in which Gilbert lays bare his abominable 
machinations to his master Ashton, Charles, seeing the 
false troth-ring that is to deceive Lucie, thought it was 
a love-gift sent by Edgar. He confessed, moreover, 
that he did not understand the story because of the 
music, which interfered very much with the words. 

“What does it matter?” said Emma. “Do be quiet!” 

“Yes, but you know,” he went on, leaning against her 
shoulder, “I like to understand things.” 

“Be quiet! be quiet!” she cried impatiently. 

Lucie advanced, half supported by her women, a 
wreath of orange blossoms in her hair, and paler than the 
white satin of her gown. Emma dreamed of her marriage 
day; she saw herself at home again amid the corn in the 
little path as they walked to the church. Oh, why had 
not she, like this woman, resisted, implored? She, 
on the contrary, had been joyous, without seeing the 
abyss into which she was throwing herself. Ah! if in 
the freshness of her beauty, before the soiling of marriage 
and the disillusions of adultery, she could have anchored 
her life upon some great, strong heart, then virtue, 
tenderness, voluptuousness, and duty blending, she 
would never have fallen from so high a happiness. But 
that happiness, no doubt, was a lie invented for the 
despair of all desire. She now knew the smallness of 
the passions that art exaggerated. So, striving to divert 
her thoughts, Emma determined now to see in this 
reproduction of her sorrows only a plastic fantasy, 
[285] 


MADAME BOVARY 


well enough to please the eye, and she even smiled in- 
ternally with disdainful pity when at the back of the 
stage under the velvet hangings a man appeared in a 
black cloak. 

His large Spanish hat fell at a gesture he made, and 
immediately the instruments and the singers began the 
sextet. Edgar, flashing with fury, dominated all the 
others with his clearer voice; Ashton hurled homicidal 
provocations at him in deep notes; Lucie uttered her 
shrill plaint, Arthur at one side, his modulated tones 
in the middle register, and the bass of the minister pealed 
forth like an organ, while the voices of the women re- 
peating his words took them up in chorus delightfully. 
They were all in a row gesticulating, and anger, ven- 
geance, jealousy, terror, and stupefaction breathed forth 
at once from their half-opened mouths. The outraged 
lover brandished his naked sword; his guipure ruffle rose 
with jerks to the movements of his chest, and he walked 
from right to left with long strides, clanking against the 
boards the silver-gilt spurs of his soft boots, widening 
out at the ankles. He, she thought, must have an 
inexhaustible love to lavish it upon the crowd with such 
effusion. All her small fault-findings faded before the 
poetry of the part that absorbed her; and, drawn towards 
this man by the illusion of the character, she tried to 
imagine to herself his life — that life resonant, ex- 
traordinary, splendid, and that might have been hers if 
fate had willed it. They would have known one another, 
loved one another. With him, through all the kingdoms 
of Europe she would have travelled from capital to capi- 
tal, sharing his fatigues and his pride, picking up the 
flowers thrown to him, herself embroidering his costumes. 

[286] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Then each evening, at the back of a box, behind the 
golden trellis-work she would have drunk in eagerly 
the expansions of this soul that would have sung for her 
alone; from the stage, even as he acted, he would have 
looked at her. But the mad idea seized her that he was 
looking at her; it was certain. She longed to run to his 
arms, to take refuge in his strength, as in the incarnation 
of love itself, and to say to him, to cry out, “Take me 
away! carry me with you! let us go! Thine, thine! 
all my ardour and all my dreams!” 

The curtain fell. 

The smell of the gas mingled with that of the breaths, 
the waving of the fans, made the air more suffocating. 
Emma wanted to go out; the crowd filled the corridors, 
and she fell back in her arm-chair with palpitations that 
choked her. Charles, fearing that she would faint, ran 
to the refreshment-room to get a glass of barley-water. 

He had great difficulty in getting back to his seat, for 
his elbows were jerked at every step because of the 
glass he held in his hands, and he even spilt three-fourths 
on the shoulders of a Rouen lady in short sleeves, who 
feeling the cold liquid running down to her loins, uttered 
cries like a peacock, as if she were being assassinated. 
Her husband, who was a mill-owner, railed at the clumsy 
fellow, and while she was with her handkerchief wiping 
up the stains from her handsome cherry-coloured taffeta 
gown, he angrily muttered about indemnity, costs, 
reinbursement. At last Charles reached his wife, saying 
to her, quite out of breath — 

“Mafoi! I thought I should have had to stay there. 
There is such a crowd — such a crowd!” 

He added — 


[287] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Just guess whom I met up there! Monsieur Leon!” 

“Leon?” 

“Himself! He’s coming along to pay his respects.” 
And as he finished these words the ex-clerk of Yonville 
entered the box. 

He held out his hand with the ease of a gentleman; 
and Madame Bovary extended hers, without doubt 
obeying the attraction of a stronger will. She had not 
felt it since that spring evening when the rain fell upon 
the green leaves, and they had said good-bye standing 
at the window. But soon recalling herself to the neces- 
sities of the situation, with an effort she shook off the 
torpor of her memories, and began stammering a few 
hurried words. 

“Ah, good-day! What! you here?” 

“Silence!” cried a voice from the pit, for the third 
act was beginning. 

“So you are at Rouen?” 

“Yes.” 

“And since when?” 

“Turn them out! turn them out!” People were 
looking at them. They were silent. 

But from that moment she listened no more; and the 
chorus of the guests, the scene between Ashton and his 
servant, the grand duet in D major, all were for her 
as far off as if the instruments had grown less sonor- 
ous and the characters more remote. She remembered 
the games at cards at the druggist’s, and the walk to the 
nurse’s, the reading in the arbour, the tete-a-tete by the 
fireside — all that poor love, so calm and so protracted, 
so discreet, so tender, and that she had nevertheless for- 
gotten. And why had he come back? What com- 
[288] 


MADAME BOVARY 

bination of circumstances had brought him back into 
her life. He was standing behind her, leaning with 
his shoulder against the wall of the box; now and again 
she felt herself shuddering beneath the hot breath from 
his nostrils falling upon her hair. 

“Does this amuse you?” said he, bending over her so 
closely that the end of his moustache brushed her cheek. 
She replied carelessly — 

“Oh, dear me, no, not much.” 

Then he proposed that they should leave the theatre 
and go and take an ice somewhere. 

“Oh, not yet; let us stay,” said Bovary. “Her 
hair’s undone; this is going to be tragic.” 

But the mad scene did not at all interest Emma, and 
the acting of the singer seemed to her exaggerated. 

“She screams too loud,” said she, turning to Charles, 
who was listening. 

“Yes — a little,” he replied, undecided between the 
frankness of his pleasure and his respect for his wife’s 
opinion. 

Then with a sigh Leon said — 

“The heat is ” 

“Unbearable! Yes!” 

“Do you feel unwell?” asked Bovary. 

“Yes, I am stifling; let us go.” 

Monsieur Leon put her long lace shawl carefully 
about her shoulders, and all three went off to sit down in 
the harbour, in the open air, outside the windows of a cafe. 

First they spoke of her illness, although Emma in- 
terrupted Charles from time to time, for fear, she said, 
of boring Monsieur Leon; and the latter told them that 
he had come to spend two years at Rouen in a large 
[289] 


MADAME BOVARY 


office, in order to get practice in his profession, which 
was different in Normandy and Paris. Then he inquired 
after Berthe, the Homais, Mere Lefran^ois, and as they 
had, in the husband's presence, nothing more to say 
to one another, the conversation soon came to an end. 

People coming out of the theatre passed along the 
pavement, humming or shouting at the top of their 
voices, “0 bel ange, ma Lucie /” Then Leon, playing 
the dilettante, began to talk music. He had seen Tam- 
bourini, Rubini, Persiani, Grisi, and, compared with them, 
Lagardy, despite his grand outbursts, was nowhere. 

“Yet,” interrupted Charles, who was slowly sipping 
his rum-sherbet, “they say that he is quite admirable 
in the last act. I regret leaving before the end, because 
it was beginning to amuse me.” 

“Why,” said the clerk, “he will soon give another 
performance.” 

But Charles replied that they were going back next day. 
“Unless,” he added, turning to his wife, “you would 
like to stay alone, kitten?” 

And changing his tactics at this unexpected opportunity 
that presented itself to his hopes, the young man sang 
the praises of Lagardy in the last number. It was 
really superb, sublime. Then Charles insisted — 

“You would get back on Sunday. Come, make up 
your mind. You are wrong if you feel that this is doing 
you the least good.” 

The tables round them, however, were emptying; 
a waiter came and stood discreetly near them. Charles, 
who understood, took out his purse; the clerk held back 
his arm, and did not forget to leave two more pieces of 
silver that he made chink on the marble. 

[290] 


MADAME BOVARY 

“I am really sorry,” said Bovary, “ about the money 
which you are ” 

The other made a careless gesture full of cordiality, 
and taking his hat said — 

“It is settled, isn’t it? To-morrow at six o’clock?” 

Charles explained once more that he could not absent 
himself longer, but that nothing prevented Emma 

“But,” she stammered, with a strange smile, “I am 
not sure ” 

“Well, you must think it over. We’II see. Night 
brings counsel.” Then to Leon, who was walking along 
with them, “Now that you are in our part of the world, 
I hope you’ll come and ask us for some dinner now and 
then.” 

The clerk declared he would not fail to do so, being 
obliged, moreover, to go to Yonville on some business 
for his office. And they parted before the Saint-Herb- 
Iand Passage just as the clock in the cathedral struck 
half-past eleven. 


c 291 ] 












PART III 


f 










I 


JWlONSIEUR LEON, while studying law, had gone 
* * * pretty often to the dancing-rooms, where he was 
even a great success amongst the grisettes, who thought 
he had a distinguished air. He was the best-mannered 
of the students; he wore his hair neither too long nor 
too short, didn’t spend all his quarter’s money on the 
first day of the month, and kept on good terms with his 
professors. As for excesses, he had always abstained 
from them, as much from cowardice as from refinement. 

Often when he stayed in his room to read, or else when 
sitting of an evening under the lime-trees of the Luxem- 
bourg, he let his Code fall to the ground, and the memory 
of Emma came back to him. But gradually this feeling 
grew weaker, and other desires gathered over it, although 
it still persisted through them all. For Leon did not 
lose all hope; there was for him, as it were, a vague 
promise floating in the future, like a golden fruit sus- 
pended from some fantastic tree. 

Then, seeing her again after three years of absence 
his passion reawakened. He must, he thought, at last 
make up his mind to possess her. Moreover, his timidity 
had worn off by contact with his gay companions, and 
he returned to the provinces despising everyone who 
had not with varnished shoes trodden the asphalte of 
the boulevards. By the side of a Parisienne in her laces, 
in the drawing-room of some illustrious physician, a 

[295] 


MADAME BOVARY 


person driving his carriage and wearing many orders, 
the poor clerk would no doubt have trembled like a 
child; but here, at Rouen, on the harbour, with the wife 
of this small doctor he felt at his ease, sure beforehand 
he would shine. Self-possession depends on its environ- 
ment. We don’t speak on the first floor as on the fourth; 
and the wealthy woman seems to have, about her, to 
guard her virtue, all her bank-notes, like a cuirass, in 
the lining of her corset. 

On leaving the Bovarys the night before, Leon had 
followed them through the streets at a distance; then 
having seen them stop at the “Croix-rouge,” he turned 
on his heel, and spent the night meditating a plan. 

So the next day about five o’clock he walked into the 
kitchen of the inn, with a choking sensation in his throat, 
pale cheeks, and that resolution of cowards that stops 
at nothing. 

“The gentleman isn’t in,” answered a servant. 

This seemed to him a good omen. He went upstairs. 

She was not disturbed at his approach; on the con- 
trary, she apologised for having neglected to tell him 
where they were staying. 

“Oh, I divined it!” said Leon. 

He pretended he had been guided towards her by 
chance, by instinct. She began to smile; and at once, 
to repair his folly, Leon told her that he had spent his 
morning in looking for her in all the hotels in the town 
one after the other. 

“So you have made up your mind to stay?” he added. 

“Yes,” she said, “and I am wrong. One ought not 
to accustom oneself to impossible pleasures when there 
are a thousand demands upon one.” 

[296] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Oh, I can imagine !” 

“Ah! no; for you, you are a man!” 

But men too had had their trials, and the conversation 
went off into certain philosophical reflections. Emma 
expatiated much on the misery of earthly affections, 
and the eternal isolation in which the heart remains 
entombed. 

To show off, or from a naive imitation of this melan- 
choly which called forth his, the young man declared 
that he had been awfully bored during the whole course 
of his studies. The law irritated him, other vocations 
attracted him, and his mother never ceased worrying 
him in every one of her letters. As they talked they 
explained more and more fully the motives of their 
sadness, working themselves up in their progressive 
confidence. But they sometimes stopped short of the 
complete exposition of their thought, and then sought 
to invent a phrase that might express it all the same. 
She did not confess her passion for another; he did not 
say that he had forgotten her. 

Perhaps he no longer remembered his suppers with 
girls after masked balls; and no doubt she did not re- 
collect the rendezvous of old when she ran across the 
fields in the morning to her lover’s house. The noises of 
the town hardly reached them, and the room seemed 
small, as if on purpose to hem in their solitude more 
closely. Emma, in a dimity dressing-gown, leant her 
head against the back of the old arm-chair; the yellow 
wall-paper formed, as it were, a golden back-ground 
behind her, and her bare head was mirrored in the glass 
with the white parting in the middle, and the tip of her 
ears peeping out from the folds of her hair. 

[297] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“But pardon me!” she said. “It is wrong of me. 
I weary you with my eternal complaints.” 

“No, never, never!” 

“If you knew,” she went on, raising to the ceiling her 
beautiful eyes, in which a tear was trembling, “all that 
I had dreamed!” 

“And I! Oh, I too have suffered! Often I went 
out; I went away. I dragged myself along the quays, 
seeking distraction amid the din of the crowd without 
being able to banish the heaviness that weighed upon 
me. In an engraver’s shop on the boulevard there is 
an Italian print of one of the Muses. She is draped in 
a tunic, and she is looking at the moon, with forget-me- 
nots in her flowing hair. Something drove me there 
continually; I stayed there hours together.” Then in 
a trembling voice, “She resembled you a little.” 

Madame Bovary turned away her head that he might 
not see the irrepressible smile she felt rising to her lips. 

“Often,” he went on, “I wrote you letters that I tore 
up.” 

She did not answer. He continued — 

“I sometimes fancied that some chance would bring 
you. I thought I recognised you at street-corners, and 
I ran after all the carriages through whose windows 
I saw a shawl fluttering, a veil like yours.” 

She seemed resolved to let him go on speaking without 
interruption. Crossing her arms and bending down her 
face, she looked at the rosettes on her slippers, and at 
intervals made little movements inside the satin of them 
with her toes. 

At last she sighed. 

“ But the most wretched thing, is it not — is to drag 
[298] 


MADAME BOVARY 


out, as I do, a useless existence. If our pains were only 
of some use to someone, we should find consolation in 
the thought of the sacrifice. ,, 

He started off in praise of virtue, duty, and silent 
immolation, having himself an incredible longing for 
self-sacrifice that he could not satisfy. 

“I should much Iike, ,, she said, “to be a nurse at a 
hospitaI. ,, 

“Alas! men have none of these holy missions, and I 
see nowhere any calling — unless perhaps that of a 
doctor.” 

With a slight shrug of her shoulders, Emma interrupted 
him to speak of her illness, which had almost killed her. 
What a pity! She should not be suffering now! Leon 
at once envied the calm of the tomb, and one evening 
he had even made his will, asking to be buried in that 
beautiful rug with velvet stripes he had received from 
her. For this was how they would have wished to be, 
each setting up an ideal to which they were now adapt- 
ing their past life. Besides, speech is a rolling-mill that 
always thins out the sentiment. 

But at this invention of the rug she asked, “But why?” 

“Why?” He hesitated. “Because I loved you so!” 
And congratulating himself at having surmounted the 
difficulty, Leon watched her face out of the corner of 
his eyes. 

It was like the sky when a gust of wind drives the 
clouds across. The mass of sad thoughts that darkened 
them seemed to be lifted from her blue eyes; her whole 
face shone. He waited. At last she replied — 

“I always suspected it.” 

Then they went over all the trifling events of that far- 

c 299 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


off existence, whose joys and sorrows they had just 
summed up in one word. They recalled the arbour 
with clematis, the dresses she had worn, the furniture 
of her room, the whole of her house. 

“And our poor cactuses, where are they?” 

“The cold killed them this winter.” 

“Ah! how I have thought of them, do you know? 
I often saw them again as of yore, when on the summer 
mornings the sun beat down upon your blinds, and I 
saw your two bare arms passing out amongst the flowers.” 

“Poor friend!” she said, holding out her hand to him. 

Leon swiftly pressed his lips to it. Then, when he had 
taken a deep breath — 

“At that time you were to me I know not what in- 
comprehensible force that took captive my life. Once, 
for instance, I went to see you; but you, no doubt, 
do not remember it.” 

“I do,” she said; “go on.” 

“You were downstairs in the ante-room, ready to go 
out, standing on the last stair; you were wearing a 
bonnet with small blue flowers; and without any in- 
vitation from you, in spite of myself, I went with you. 
Every moment, however, I grew more and more con- 
scious of my folly, and I went on walking by you, not 
daring to follow you completely, and unwilling to leave 
you. When you went into a shop, I waited in the street, 
and I watched you through the window taking off your 
gloves and counting the change on the counter. Then 
you rang at Madame Tuvache’s; you were let in, and 
I stood like an idiot in front of the great heavy door 
that had closed after you.” 

Madame Bovary, as she listened to him, wondered 

[ 300 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


that she was so old. All these things reappearing before 
her seemed to widen out her life; it was like some senti- 
mental immensity to which she returned; and from time 
to time she said in a low voice, her eyes half closed 

“Yes, it is true — true — true!” 

They heard eight strike on the different clocks of the 
Beauvoisine quarter, which is full of schools, churches, 
and large empty hotels. They no longer spoke, but they 
felt as they looked upon each other a buzzing in their 
heads, as if something sonorous had escaped from the 
fixed eyes of each of them. They were hand in hand now, 
and the past, the future, reminiscences and dreams, all 
were confounded in the sweetness of this ecstasy. Night 
was darkening over the walls, on which still shone, half 
hidden in the shade, the coarse colours of four bills 
representing four scenes from the “Tour de Nesle,” 
with a motto in Spanish and French at the bottom. 
Through the sash-window a patch of dark sky was seen 
between the pointed roofs. 

She rose to light two wax-candles on the drawers, then 
she sat down again. 

“Well!” said Uon. 

“Well!” she replied. 

He was thinking how to resume the interrupted con- 
versation, when she said to him — 

“How is it that no one until now has ever expressed 
such sentiments to me?” 

The clerk said that ideal natures were difficult to under- 
stand. He from the first moment had loved her, and he 
despaired when he thought of the happiness that would 
have been theirs, if thanks to fortune, meeting her earlier, 
they had been indissolubly bound to one another. 

[301 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“ I have sometimes thought of it,” she went on. 

“What a dream!” murmured Leon. And fingering 
gently the blue binding of her long white sash, he added, 
“And who prevents us from beginning now?” 

“No, my friend,” she replied; “I am too old; you are 
too young. Forget me! Others will love you; you will 
love them.” 

“Not as you!” he cried. 

“What a child you are! Come, let us be sensible. 
I wish it.” 

She showed him the impossibility of their love, and 
that they must remain, as formerly, on the simple terms 
of a fraternal friendship. 

Was she speaking thus seriously? No doubt Emma 
did not herself know, quite absorbed as she was by the 
charm of the seduction, and the necessity of defending 
herself from it; and contemplating the young man with 
a moved look, she gently repulsed the timid caresses that 
his trembling hands attempted. 

“Ah! forgive me!” he cried, drawing back. 

Emma was seized with a vague fear at this shyness, 
more dangerous to her than the boldness of Rodolphe 
when he advanced to her open-armed. No man had 
ever seemed to her so beautiful. An exquisite candour 
emanated from his being. He lowered his long fine eye- 
lashes, that curled upwards. His cheek, with the soft 
skin reddened, she thought, with desire of her person, and 
Emma felt an invincible longing to press her lips to it. 
Then, leaning towards the clock as if to see the time — 

“Ah! how late it is!” she said; “how we do chatter!” 

He understood the hint and took up his hat. 

“It has even made me forget the theatre. And poor 
[302] 


MADAME BOVARY 

Bovary has left me here especially for that. Monsieur 
Lormeaux, of the Rue Grand-Pont, was to take me and 
his wife.” 

And the opportunity was lost, as she was to leave the 
next day. 

“Really!” said Leon. 

“Yes.” 

“But I must see you again,” he went on. “I wanted 
to tell you ” 

“What?” 

“Something — important — serious. Oh, no! Be- 
sides, you will not go; it is impossible. If you should — 
listen to me. Then you have not understood me; you 
have not guessed ” 

“Yet you speak plainly,” said Emma. 

“Ah! you can jest. Enough! enough! Oh, for pity’s 
sake, let me see you once — only once!” 

“Well ” She stopped; then, as if thinking better 

of it, “Oh, not here!” 

“Where you will.” 

“Will you ” She seemed to reflect; then abruptly, 

“To-morrow at eleven o’clock in the cathedral.” 

“I shall be there,” he cried, seizing her hands, which 
she disengaged. 

And as they were both standing up, he behind her, 
and Emma with her head bent, he stooped over her and 
pressed long kisses on her neck. 

“You are mad! Ah! you are mad!” she said, with 
sounding little laughs, while the kisses multiplied. 

Then bending his head over her shoulder, he seemed 
to beg the consent of her eyes. They fell upon him full 
of an icy dignity. 


[303] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Leon stepped back to go out. He stopped on the 
threshold; then he whispered with a trembling voice, 
“ To-morrow !” 

She answered with a nod, and disappeared like a 
bird into the next room. 

In the evening Emma wrote the clerk an interminable 
letter, in which she cancelled the rendezvous; all was 
over; they must not, for the sake of their happiness, 
meet again. But when the letter was finished, as she 
did not know Leon’s address, she was puzzled. 

“I’ll give it to him myself,” she said; “he will come.” 

The next morning, at the open window, and humming 
on his balcony, Leon himself varnished his pumps with 
several coatings. He put on white trousers, fine socks, 
a green coat, emptied all the scent he had into his handker- 
chief, then having had his hair curled, he uncurled it 
again, in order to give it a more natural elegance. 

“It is still too early,” he thought, looking at the hair- 
dresser’s cuckoo-clock, that pointed to the hour of nine. 
He read an old fashion journal, went out, smoked a 
cigar, walked up three streets, thought it was time, and 
went slowly towards the porch of Notre Dame. 

It was a beautiful summer morning. Silver plate 
sparkled in the jeweller’s windows, and the light falling 
obliquely on the cathedral made mirrors of the corners 
of the grey stones; a flock of birds fluttered in the grey 
sky round the trefoil bell-turrets; the square, resounding 
with cries, was fragrant with the flowers that bordered 
its pavement, roses, jasmines, pinks, narcissi, and tube- 
roses, unevenly spaced out between moist grasses, cat- 
mint, and chickweed for the birds; the fountains gurgled 
in the centre, and under large umbrellas, amidst melons, 

[ 304] 


MADAME BOVARY 


piled up in heaps, flower-women, bare-headed, were 
twisting paper round bunches of violets. 

The young man took one. It was the first time that 
he had bought flowers for a woman, and his breast, as 
he smelt them, swelled with pride, as if this homage that 
he meant for another had recoiled upon himself. 

But he was afraid of being seen; he resolutely entered 
the church. The beadle, who was just then standing 
on the threshold in the middle of the left doorway, under 
the “Dancing Marianne,” with feather cap, and rapier 
dangling against his calves, came in, more majestic than 
a cardinal, and as shining as a saint on a holy pyx. 

He came towards Leon, and, with that smile of wheed- 
ling benignity assumed by ecclesiastics when they ques- 
tion children — ■. 

“The gentleman, no doubt, does not belong to these 
parts? The gentleman would like to see the curiosities 
of the church?” 

“No!” said the other. 

And he first went round the lower aisles. Then he 
went out to look at the Place. Emma was not coming 
yet. He went up again to the choir. 

The nave was reflected in the full fonts with the be- 
ginning of the arches and some portions of the glass 
windows. But the reflections of the paintings, broken 
by the marble rim, were continued farther on upon the 
flag-stones, like a many-coloured carpet. The broad 
daylight from without streamed into the church in three 
enormous rays from the three opened portals. From 
time to time at the upper end a sacristan passed, making 
the oblique genuflexion of devout persons in a hurry. 
The crystal lustres hung motionless. In the choir a 

[305] 


MADAME BOVARY 


silver lamp was burning, and from the side chapels and 
dark places of the church sometimes rose sounds like 
sighs, with the clang of a closing grating, its echo rever- 
berating under the lofty vault. 

Leon with solemn steps walked along by the walls. 
Life had never seemed so good to him. She would 
come directly, charming, agitated, looking back at the 
glances that followed her, and with her flounced dress, 
her gold eyeglass, her thin shoes, with all sorts of elegant 
trifles that he had never enjoyed, and with the ineffable 
seduction of yielding virtue. The church like a huge 
boudoir spread around her; the arches bent down to 
gather in the shade the confession of her love; the win- 
dows shone resplendent to illumine her face, and the 
censers would burn that she might appear like an angel 
amid the fumes of the sweet-smelling odours. 

But she did not come. He sat down on a chair, and 
his eyes fell upon a blue stained window representing 
boatmen carrying baskets. He looked at it long, at- 
tentively, and he counted the scales of the fishes and the 
button-holes of the doublets, while his thoughts wandered 
off towards Emma. 

The beadle, standing aloof, was inwardly angry at 
this individual who took the liberty of admiring the 
cathedral by himself. He seemed to him to be conduct- 
ing himself in a monstrous fashion, to be robbing him 
in a sort, and almost committing sacrilege. 

But a rustle of silk on the flags, the tip of a bonnet, a 
lined cloak — it was she ! Leon rose and ran to meet her. 

Emma was pale. She walked fast. 

“Read!” she said, holding out a paper to him. “Oh, 
no!” 


[306] 


MADAME BOVARY 


And she abruptly withdrew her hand to enter the 
chapel of the Virgin, where, kneeling on a chair, she 
began to pray. 

The young man was irritated at this bigot fancy; 
then he nevertheless experienced a certain charm in 
seeing her, in the middle of a rendezvous, thus lost in her 
devotions, like an Andalusian marchioness; then he grew 
bored, for she seemed never coming to an end. 

Emma prayed, or rather strove to pray, hoping that 
some sudden resolution might descend to her from 
heaven; and to draw down divine aid she filled full her 
eyes with the splendours of the tabernacle. She breathed 
in the perfumes of the full-blown flowers in the large 
vases, and listened to the stillness of the church, that 
only heightened the tumult of her heart. 

She rose, and they were about to leave, when the 
beadle came forward, hurriedly saying — 

“ Madame, no doubt, does not belong to these parts? 
Madame would like to see the curiosities of the church?” 

“Oh, no!” cried the clerk. 

“Why not?” said she. For she clung with her ex- 
piring virtue to the Virgin, the sculptures, the tombs — 
anything. 

Then, in order to proceed “by rule,” the beadle con- 
ducted them right to the entrance near the square, where, 
pointing out with his cane a large circle of block-stones 
without inscription or carving — 

“This,” he said majestically, “is the circumference of 
the beautiful bell of Ambroise. It weighed forty thou- 
sand pounds. There was not its equal in all Europe. 
The workman who cast it died of the joy — — ” 

“Let us go on,” said Leon. 

[307] 


MADAME BOVARY 


The old fellow started off again; then, having got 
back to the chapel of the Virgin, he stretched forth his 
arm with an all-embracing gesture of demonstration, and, 
prouder than a country squire showing you his espaliers, 
went on — 

“This simple stone covers Pierre de Breze, lord of 
Varenne and of Brissac, grand marshall of Poitou, and 
governor of Normandy, who died at the battle of Mont- 
Ihery on the 16th of July, 14 65.” 

Leon bit his lips, fuming. 

“And on the right, 'this gentleman all encased in iron, 
on the prancing horse, is his grandson, Louise de Breze, 
lord of Breval and of Montchauvet, Count de Maulevrier, 
Baron de Mauny, chamberlain to the king, Knight of 
the Order, and also governor of Normandy; died on 
the 23rd of July, 1531 — a Sunday, as the inscription 
specifies; and below, this figure, about to descend 
into the tomb, portrays the same person. It is not 
possible, is it, to see a more perfect representation of 
annihilation?” 

Madame Bovary put up her eyeglasses. Leon, motion- 
less, looked at her, no longer even attempting to speak 
a single word, to make a gesture, so discouraged was he 
at this two-fold obstinacy of gossip and indifference. 

The everlasting guide went on — 

“Near him, this kneeling woman who weeps is his 
spouse, Diane de Poitiers, Countess de Breze, Duchess 
de Valentinois, born in 1499, died in 1566, and to the 
left, the one with the child is the Holy Virgin. Now 
turn to this side; here are the tombs of the Ambroise. 
They were both cardinals and archbishops of Rouen. 
That one was minister under Louis XII. He did a 

[30 


MADAME BOVARY 

great deal for the cathedral. In his will he left thirty 
thousand gold crowns for the poor.” 

And without stopping, still talking, he pushed them 
into a chapel full of balustrades, some put away, and 
disclosed a kind of block that certainly might once have 
been an ill-made statue. 

“Truly,” he said with a groan, “it adorned the tomb 
of Richard Coeur de Lion, King of England and Duke 
of Normandy. It was the Calvinists, sir, who reduced 
it to this condition. They had buried it for spite in the 
earth, under the episcopal seat of Monsignor. See! 
this is the door by which Monsignor passes to his house. 
Let us pass on quickly to see the gargoyle windows.” 

But Leon hastily took some silver from his pocket and 
seized Emma’s arm. The beadle stood dumbfounded, 
not able to understand this untimely munificence when 
there were still so many things for the stranger to see. 
So calling him back, he cried — 

“Sir! sir! The steeple! the steeple!” 

“No, thank you!” said Leon. 

“You are wrong, sir! It is four hundred and forty 
feet high, nine less than the great pyramid of Egypt. 
It is all cast; it ” 

Leon was fleeing, for it seemed to him that his love, 
that for nearly two hours now had become petrified in 
the church like the stones, would vanish like a vapour 
through that sort of truncated funnel, of oblong cage, 
of open chimney that rises so grotesquely from the 
cathedral like the extravagant attempt of some fantastic 
brazier. 

“But where are we going?” she said. 

Making no answer, he walked on with a rapid step; 

[309] 


MADAME BOVARY 


and Madame Bovary was already dipping her finger in 
the holy water when behind them they heard a panting 
breath interrupted by the regular sound of a cane. Leon 
turned back. 

“Sir!” 

“What is it?” 

And he recognised the beadle, holding under his arms 
and balancing against his stomach some twenty large 
sewn volumes. They were works “which treated of the 
cathedral.” 

“Idiot!” growled Leon, rushing out of the church. 

A lad was playing about the close. 

“Go and get me a cab!” 

The child bounded off like a ball by the Rue Quatre- 
Vents; then they were alone a few minutes, face to face, 
and a little embarrassed. 

“Ah! Leon! Really — I don’t know — if I ought,” 
she whispered. Then with a more serious air, “Do you 
know, it is very improper?” 

“How so?” replied the clerk. “It is done at Paris.” 

And that, as an irresistible argument, decided her. 

Still the cab did not come, Leon was afraid she 
she might go back into the church. At last the cab 
appeared. 

“At all events, go out by the north porch,” cried the 
beadle, who was left alone on the threshold, “so as to 
see the Resurrection, the Last Judgment, Paradise, 
King David, and the Condemned in Hell-flames.” 

“Where to, sir?” asked the coachman. 

“Where you like,” said Leon, forcing Emma into the 
cab. 

And the lumbering machine set out. It went down the 

[310] 


MADAME BOVARY 

Rue Grand-Pont, crossed the Place des Arts, the Quai 
Napoleon, the Pont Neuf, and stopped short before the 
statue of Pierre Corneille. 

“Go on,” cried a voice that came from within. 

The cab went on again, and as soon as it reached the 
Carrefour Lafayette, set off down-hill, and entered the 
station at a gallop. 

“No, straight on!” cried the same voice. 

The cab came out by the gate, and soon having reached 
the Cours, trotted quietly beneath the elm-trees. The 
coachman wiped his brow, put his leather hat between 
his knees, and drove his carriage beyond the side alley 
by the meadow to the margin of the waters. 

It went along by the river, along the towing-path 
paved with sharp pebbles, and for a long while in the 
direction of Oyssel, beyond the isles. 

But suddenly it turned with a dash across Quatre- 
mares, Sotteville, La Grande-Chaussee, the Rue d’EIbeuf, 
and made its third halt in front of the Jardin des Plantes. 

“Get on, will you?” cried the voice more furiously. 

And at once resuming its course, it passed by Saint- 
Sever, by the Quai des Curandiers, the Quai aux Meules, 
once more over the bridge, by the Place du Champ de 
Mars, and behind the hospital gardens, where old men 
in black coats were walking in the sun along the terrace 
all green with ivy. It went up the Boulevard Bouvreuil, 
along the Boulevard Cauchoise, then the whole of Mont- 
Riboudet to the Deville hills. 

It came back; and then, without any fixed plan or 
direction, wandered about at hazard. The cab was 
seen at Saint-Pol, at Lescure, at Mont Gargan, at La 
Rougue-Marc and Place du Gaillardbois; in the Rue 
[3n] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Maladrerie, Rue Dinanderie, before Saint-Romain, Saint- 
Vivien, Saint-Maclou, Saint-Nicaise — in front of the 
Customs, at the “Vieille Tour/’ the “Trois Pipes,” and 
the Monumental Cemetery. From time to time the 
coachman, on his box cast despairing eyes at the public- 
houses. He could not understand what furious desire for 
locomotion urged these individuals never to wish to stop. 
He tried to now and then, and at once exclamations of 
anger burst forth behind him. Then he lashed his per- 
spiring jades afresh, but indifferent to their jolting, 
running up against things here and there, not caring if 
he did, demoralised, and almost weeping with thirst, 
fatigue, and depression. 

And on the harbour, in the midst of the drays and 
casks, and in the streets, at the corners, the good folk 
opened large wonder-stricken eyes at this sight, so extra- 
ordinary in the provinces, a cab with blinds drawn, and 
which appeared thus constantly shut more closely than 
a tomb, and tossing about like a vessel. 

Once in the middle of the day, in the open country, 
just as the sun beat most fiercely against the old plated 
lanterns, a bared hand passed beneath the small blinds 
of yellow canvas, and threw out some scraps of paper 
that scattered in the wind, and farther off lighted like 
white butterflies on a field of red clover all in bloom. 

At about six o’clock the carriage stopped in a back 
street of the Beauvoisine Quarter, and a woman got out, 
who walked with her veil down, and without turning 
her head. 


C 312 ] 


II 


/^\N reaching the inn, Madame Bovary was surprised 
not to see the diligence. Hivert, who had waited 
for her fifty-three minutes, had at last started. 

Yet nothing forced her to go; but she had given her 
word that she would return that same evening. More- 
over, Charles expected her, and in her heart she felt 
already that cowardly docility that is for some women 
at once the chastisement and atonement of adultery. 

She packed her box quickly, paid her bill, took a cab 
in the yard, hurrying on the driver, urging him on, every 
moment inquiring about the time and the miles traversed. 
He succeeded in catching up the “Hirondelle” as it 
neared the first houses of Quincampoix. 

Hardly was she seated in her corner than she closed 
her eyes, and opened them at the foot of the hill, when 
from afar she recognised Felicite, who was on the look- 
out in front of the farrier’s shop. Hivert pulled in his 
horses and, the servant, climbing up to the window, 
said mysteriously — 

“Madame, you must go at once to Monsieur Homais. 
It’s for something important.” 

The village was silent as usual. At the corner of the 
streets were small pink heaps that smoked in the air, 
for this was the time for jam-making, and everyone at 
Yonville prepared his supply on the same day. But in 
front of the chemist’s shop one might admire a far larger 
. [3i3] 


MADAME BOVARY 


heap, and that surpassed the others with the superiority 
that a laboratory must have over ordinary stores, a 
general need over individual fancy. 

She went in. The large arm-chair was upset, and 
even the “Fanal de Rouen” lay on the ground, out- 
spread between two pestles. She pushed open the 
lobby door, and in the middle of the kitchen, amid 
brown jars full of picked currants, of powdered sugar 
and lump sugar, of the scales on the table, and of the 
pans on the fire, she saw all the Homais, small and large, 
with aprons reaching to their chins, and with forks in 
their hands. Justin was standing up with bowed head, 
and the chemist was screaming — 

“Who told you to go and fetch it in the Capharnaiim” 
[ “What is it? What is the matter?” 

“What is it?” replied the druggist. “We are making 
preserves; they are simmering; but they were about 
to boil over, because there is too much juice, and I ordered 
another pan. Then he, from indolence, from laziness, 
went and took, hanging on its nail in my laboratory, 
the key of the Capharnaiim .” 

It was thus the druggist called a small room under 
the leads, full of the utensils and the goods of his trade. 
He often spent long hours there alone, labelling, decant- 
ing, and doing up again; and he looked upon it not as 
a simple store, but as a veritable sanctuary, whence there 
afterwards issued, elaborated by his hands, all sorts of 
pills, boluses, infusions, lotions, and potions, that would 
bear far and wide his celebrity. No one in the world 
set foot there, and he respected it so, that he swept it 
himself. Finally, if the pharmacy, open to all comers, 
was the spot where he displayed his pride, the Cap- 

[314] 


MADAME BOVARY 


harnaiim was the refuge where, egoistically concentrat- 
ing himself, Homais delighted in the exercise of his 
predilections, so that Justin’s thoughtlessness seemed to 
him a monstrous piece of irreverence, and, redder than 
the currants, he repeated — 

“Yes, from the Capharnaum! The key that locks up 
the acids and caustic alkalies! To go and get a spare 
pan! a pan with a lid! and that I shall perhaps never use! 
Everything is of importance in the delicate operations of 
our art! But, devil take it! one must make distinctions, 
and not employ for almost domestic purposes that which 
is meant for pharmaceutical! It is as if one were to 
carve a fowl with a scalpel; as if a magistrate ” 

“Now be calm,” said Madame Homais. 

And Athalie, pulling at his coat, cried “Papa! papa!” 

“No, let me alone,” went on the druggist, “let me 
alone, hang it! My word! One might as well set up for 
a grocer. That’s it! go it! respect nothing! break, smash, 
let loose the leeches, burn the mallow-paste, pickle the 
gherkins in the window jars, tear up the bandages!” 

“I thought you had ” said Emma. 

“Presently! Do you know to what you exposed 
yourself? Didn’t you see anything in the corner, on 
the left, on the third shelf? Speak, answer, articulate 
something.” 

“I — don’t — know,” stammered the young fellow. 

“Ah! you don’t know! Well, then, I do know! You 
saw a bottle of blue glass, sealed with yellow wax, that 
contains a white powder, on which I have even written 
‘Dangerous!’ And do you know what is in it? Ar- 
senic! And you go and touch it! You take a pan that 
was next to it!” 


C 3 ! 5 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Next to it!” cried Madame Homais, clasping her 
hands. “Arsenic! You might have poisoned us all.” 

And the children began howling as if they already had 
frightful pains in their entrails. 

“Or poison a patient!” continued the druggist. “Do 
you want to see me in the prisoner’s dock with criminals, 
in a court of justice? To see me dragged to the scaffold? 
Don’t you know what care I take in managing things, 
although I am so thoroughly used to it? Often I am 
horrified myself when I think of my responsibility; 
for the Government persecutes us, and the absurd legis- 
lation that rules us is a veritable Damocles’ sword over 
our heads.” 

Emma no longer dreamed of asking what they wanted 
her for, and the druggist went on in breathless phrases — 

“That is your return for all the kindnesses we have 
shown you! That is how you recompense me for the 
really paternal care that I lavish on you! For without 
me where would you be? What would you be doing? 
Who provides you with food, education, clothes, and all 
the means of figuring one day with honour in the ranks 
of society? But you must pull hard at the oar if you’re 
to do that, and get, as, people say, callosities upon your 
hands. Fabricando fit Jaber , age quod agis.” 

He was so exasperated he quoted Latin. He would 
have quoted Chinese or Greenlandish had he known 
those two languages, for he was in one of those crises 
in which the whole soul shows indistinctly what it con- 
tains, like the ocean, which, in the storm, opens itself 
from the seaweeds on its shores down to the sands of 
its abysses. 

And he went on — 


[316] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“I am beginning to repent terribly of having taken 
you up! I should certainly have done better to have 
left you to rot in your poverty and the dirt in which 
you were born. Oh, you’ll never be fit for anything 
but to herd animals with horns! You have no aptitude 
for science! You hardly know how to stick on a label! 
And there you are, dwelling with me snug as a parson, 
living in clover, taking your ease!” 

But Emma, turning to Madame Homais, “I was told 
to come here ” 

“Oh, dear me!” interrupted the good woman, with a 
sad air, “how am I to tell you? It is a misfortune!” 

She could not finish, the druggist was thundering — 
“Empty it! Clean it! Take it back! Be quick!” 

And seizing Justin by the collar of his blouse, he shook 
a book out of his pocket. The lad stooped, but Homais 
was the quicker, and, having picked up the volume, con- 
templated it with staring eyes and open mouth. 

“Conjugal — love!" he said, slowly separating the two 
words. “Ah! very good! very good! very pretty! And 
illustrations! Oh, this is too much!” 

Madame Homais came forward. 

“No, do not touch it!” 

The children wanted to look at the pictures. 

“Leave the room,” he said imperiously; and they 
went out. 

First he walked up and down with the open volume 
in his hand, rolling his eyes, choking, tumid, apoplectic. 
Then he came straight to his pupil, and, planting him- 
self in front of him with crossed arms — 

“Have you every vice, then, little wretch? Take care! 
you are on a downward path. Did not you reflect that 

[317] 


MADAME BO VARY 

this infamous book might fall in the hands of my chil- 
dren, kindle a spark in their minds, tarnish the purity of 
Athalie, corrupt Napoleon. He is already formed like 
a man. Are you quite sure, anyhow, that they have not 
read it? Can you certify to me ” 

“But really, sir,” said Emma, “you wished to tell 
me ” 

“Ah, yes! madame. Your father-in-law is dead.” 

In fact, Monsieur Bovary senior had expired the 
evening before suddenly from an attack of apoplexy 
as he got up from table, and by way of greater precaution, 
on account of Emma’s sensibility, Charles had begged 
Homais to break the horrible news to her gradually. 
Homais had thought over his speech; he had rounded, 
polished it, made it rhythmical; it was a masterpiece 
of prudence and transitions, of subtle turns and delicacy; 
but anger had got the better of rhetoric. 

Emma, giving up all chance of hearing any details, 
left the pharmacy; for Monsieur Homais had taken up 
the thread of his vituperations. However, he was 
growing calmer, and was now grumbling in a paternal 
tone whilst he fanned himself with his skull-cap. 

“It is not that I entirely disapprove of the work. 
Its author was a doctor! There are certain scientific 
points in it that it is not ill a man should know, and I 
would even venture to say that a man must know. But 
later — later ! At any rate, not till you are man yourself 
and your temperament is formed.” 

When Emma knocked at the door, Charles, who was 
waiting for her, came forward with open arms and said 
to her with tears in his voice — 

“Ah! my dear!” 


[318] 


MADAME BOVARY 


And he bent over her gently to kiss her. But at the 
contact of his lips the memory of the other seized her, 
and she passed her hand over her face shuddering. 

But she made answer, “Yes, I know, I know!” 

He showed her the letter in which his mother told the 
event without any sentimental hypocrisy. She only 
regretted her husband had not received the consolations 
of religion, as he had died at Daudeville, in the street, 
at the door of a cafe after a patriotic dinner with some 
ex-officers. 1 

Emma gave him back the letter; then at dinner, for 
appearance’s sake, she affected a certain repugnance. 
But as he urged her to try, she resolutely began eating, 
while Charles opposite her sat motionless in a dejected 
attitude. 

Now and then he raised his head and gave her a long 
look full of distress. Once he sighed, “I should have 
liked to see him again!” 

She was silent. At last, understanding that she must 
say something, “How old was your father?” she asked. 

“Fifty-eight.” 

“Ah!” 

And that was all. 

A quarter of an hour after he added, “My poor mother! 
what will become of her now?” 

She made a gesture that signified she did not know. 
Seeing her so taciturn, Charles imagined her much 
affected, and forced himself to say nothing, not to re- 
awaken this sorrow which moved him. And, shaking 
off his own 

“Did you enjoy yourself yesterday?” he asked. 

“Yes.” 


[319] 


MADAME BOVARY 


When the cloth was removed, Bovary did not rise, 
nor did Emma; and as she looked at him, the monotony 
of the spectacle drove little by little all pity from her 
heart. He seemed to her paltry, weak, a cipher — in 
a word, a poor thing in every way. How to get rid of 
him? What an interminable evening! Something stupe- 
fying like the fumes of opium seized her. 

They heard in the passage the sharp noise of a wooden 
leg on the boards. It was Hippolyte bringing back 
Emma’s luggage. In order to put it down he described 
painfully a quarter of a circle with his stump. 

“He doesn’t even remember any more about it,” 
she thought, looking at the poor devil, whose coarse 
red hair was wet with perspiration. 

Bovary was searching at the bottom of his purse for 
a centime, and without appearing to understand all there 
was of humiliation for him in the mere presence of this 
man, who stood there like a personified reproach to his 
incurable incapacity. 

“Hallo! you’ve a pretty bouquet,” he said, noticing 
Leon’s violets on the chimney. 

“Yes,” she replied indifferently; “it’s a bouquet I 
bought just now from a beggar.” 

Charles picked up the flowers, and freshening his eyes, 
red with tears, against them, smelt them delicately. 

She took them quickly from his hand and put them in 
a glass of water. 

The next day Madame Bovary senior arrived. She 
and her son wept much. Emma, on the pretext of giving 
orders, disappeared. The following day they had a 
talk over the mourning. They went and sat down with 
their workboxes by the waterside under the arbour. 

C 320 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Charles was thinking of his father, and was surprised 
to feel so much affection for this man, whom till then he 
had thought he cared little about. Madame Bovary 
senior was thinking of her husband. The worst days 
of the past seemed enviable to her. All was forgotten 
beneath the instinctive regret of such a long habit, and 
from time to time whilst she sewed, a big tear rolled along 
her nose and hung suspended there a moment. Emma 
was thinking that it was scarcely forty-eight hours 
since they had been together, far from the world, all in 
a frenzy of joy, and not having eyes enough to gaze upon 
each other. She tried to recall the slightest details 
of that past day. But the presence of her husband and 
mother-in-law worried her. She would have liked to 
hear nothing, to see nothing, so as not to disturb the 
meditation on her love, that, do what she would, became 
lost in external sensations. 

She was unpicking the lining of a dress, and the strips 
were scattered around her. Madame Bovary senior was 
plying her scissors without looking up, and Charles in 
his list slippers and his old brown surtout that he used as 
a dressing-gown, sat with both hands in his pockets, and 
did not speak either; near them Berthe, in a little white 
pinafore, was raking the sand in the walks with her spade. 

Suddenly she saw Monsieur Lheureux, the Iinendraper, 
come in through the gate. 

He came to offer his services “under the sad circum- 
stances.’ ’ Emma answered that she thought she could 
do without. The shopkeeper was not to be beaten. 

“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but I should like to 
have a private talk with you.” Then in a low voice, 
“It’s about that affair — you know.” 

[ 321 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Charles crimsoned to his ears. “Oh, yes! certainly.” 
And in his confusion, turning to his wife, “Couldn’t 
you, my darling?” 

She seemed to understand him, for she rose; and 
Charles said to his mother, “It is nothing particular. 
No doubt, some household trifle.” He did not want 
her to know the story of the bill, fearing her reproaches. 

As soon as they were alone, Monsieur Lheureux in 
sufficiently clear terms began to congratulate Emma on 
the inheritance, then to talk of indifferent matters, of 
the espaliers, of the harvest, and of his own health, 
which was always so-so, always having ups and downs. 
In fact, he had to work devilish hard, although he didn’t 
make enough, in spite of all people said, to find butter 
for his bread. 

Emma let him talk on. She had bored herself so 
prodigiously the last two days. 

“And so you’re quite well again?” he went on. “Ma 
Joi! I saw your husband in a sad state. He’s a good 
fellow, though we did have a little misunderstanding.” 

She asked what misunderstanding, for Charles had 
said nothing of the dispute about the goods supplied 
to her. 

“Why, you know well enough,” cried Lheureux. “It 
was about your little fancies — the travelling trunks.” 

He had drawn his hat over his eyes, and, with his hands 
behind his back, smiling and whistling, he looked straight 
at her in an unbearable manner. Did he suspect any- 
thing? She was lost in all kinds of apprehensions. 
At last, however, he went on — 

“We made it up, all the same, and I’ve come again 
to propose another arrangement.” 

[322] 


MADAME BOVARY 


This was to renew the bill Bovary had signed. The 
doctor, of course, would do as he pleased; he was not 
to trouble himself, especially just now, when he would 
have a lot of worry. “And he would do better to give 
it over to someone else, — to you, for example. With 
a power of attorney it could be easily managed, and then 
we (you and I) would have our little business trans- 
actions together.” 

She did not understand. He was silent. Then, 
passing to his trade, Lheureux declared that madame 
must require something. He would send her a black 
barege, twelve yards, just enough to make a gown. 

“The one you’ve on is good enough for the house, 
but you want another for calls. I saw that the very 
moment that I came in. I’ve the eye of an American!” 

He did not send the stuff; he brought it. Then he 
came again to measure it; he came again on other pre- 
texts, always trying to make himself agreeable, useful, 
“enfeoffing himself,” as Homais would have said, and 
always dropping some hint to Emma about the power of 
attorney. He never mentioned the bill; she did not 
think of it. Charles, at the beginning of her convales- 
cence, had certainly said something about it to her, 
but so many emotions had passed through her head 
that she no longer remembered it. Besides, she took 
care not to talk of any money questions. Madame 
Bovary seemed surprised at this, and attributed the 
change in her ways to the religious sentiments she had 
contracted during her illness. 

But as soon as she was gone, Emma greatly astounded 
Bovary by her practical good sense. It would be neces- 
sary to make inquiries, to look into mortgages, and see 

[323] 


MADAME BOVARY 

if there were any occasion for a sale by auction or a 
liquidation. She quoted technical terms casually, pro- 
nounced the grand words of order, the future, foresight, 
and constantly exaggerated the difficulties of settling 
his father’s affairs so much, that at last one day she 
showed him the rough draft of a power of attorney to 
manage and administer his business, arrange all loans, 
sign and endorse all bills, pay all sums, etc. She had 
profited by Lheureux’s lessons. 

Charles naively asked her where this paper came 
from. 

“Monsieur Guillaumin”; and with the utmost cool- 
ness she added, “I don’t trust him overmuch. Notaries 
have such a bad reputation. Perhaps we ought to con- 
sult we only know — no one.” 

“Unless Leon ” replied Charles, who was reflect- 

ing. But it was difficult to explain matters by letter. 
Then she offered to make the journey, but he thanked 
her. She insisted. It was quite a contest of mutual 
consideration. At last she cried with affected wayward- 
ness — 

“No, I will go!” 

“How good you are!” he said, kissing her forehead. 

The next morning she set out in the “Hirondelle” 
to go to Rouen to consult Monsieur Leon, and she stayed 
there three days. 


[324] 


Ill 


T HEY were three full, exquisite days — a true honey- 
moon. They were at the Hotel-de-BouIogne, on 
the harbour; and they lived there, with drawn blinds 
and closed doors, with flowers on the floor, and iced 
syrups were brought them early in the morning. 

Towards evening they took a covered boat and went 
to dine on one of the islands. It was the time when 
one hears by the side of the dockyard the caulking- 
mallets sounding against the hull of vessels. The smoke 
of the tar rose up between the trees; there were large 
fatty drops on the water, undulating in the purple colour 
of the sun, like floating plaques of Florentine bronze. 

They rowed down in the midst of moored boats, 
whose long oblique cables grazed lightly against the 
bottom of the boat. The din of the town gradually 
grew distant; the rolling of carriages, the tumult of 
voices, the yelping of dogs on the decks of vessels. She 
took off her bonnet, and they landed on their island. 

They sat down in the Iow-ceilinged room of a tavern, 
at whose door hung black nets. They ate fried smelts, 
cream and cherries. They lay down upon the grass; 
they kissed behind the poplars; and they would fain, 
like two Robinsons, have lived for ever in this little 
place, which seemed to them in their beatitude the 
most magnificent on earth. It was not the first time 
that they had seen trees, a blue sky, meadows; that they 

[325 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


had heard the water flowing and the wind blowing in the 
leaves; but, no doubt, they had never admired all this, 
as if Nature had not existed before, or had only begun to 
be beautiful since the gratification of their desires. 

At night they returned. The boat glided along the 
shores of the islands. They sat at the bottom, both 
hidden by the shade, in silence. The square oars rang 
in the iron thwarts, and, in the stillness, seemed to mark 
time, like the beating of a metronome, while at the 
stern the rudder that trailed behind never ceased its 
gentle splash against the water. 

Once the moon rose; then they did not fail to make 
fine phrases, finding the orb melancholy and full of 
poetry. She even began to sing — 

“One nighty do you remember , we were sailing, ” etc. 

Her musical but weak voice died away along the 
waves, and the winds carried off the trills that Leon 
heard pass like the flapping of wings about him. 

She was opposite him, leaning against the partition 
of the shallop, through one of whose raised blinds the 
moon streamed in. Her black dress, whose drapery 
spread out like a fan, made her seem more slender, 
taller. Her head was raised, her hands clasped, her 
eyes turned towards heaven. At times the shadow of 
the willows hid her completely; then she reappeared 
suddenly, like a vision in the moonlight. 

Leon, on the floor by her side, found under his hand a 
ribbon of scarlet silk. The boatman looked at it, and 
at last said — 

“Perhaps it belongs to the party I took out the other 
day. A lot of jolly folk, gentlemen and ladies, with cakes, 
[326] 


MADAME BOVARY 

champagne, cornets — everything in style ! There was 
one especially, a tall handsome man with small mous- 
taches, who was that funny! And they all kept saying, 
‘Now tell us something, Adolphe — Dolpe,’ I think.” 

She shivered. 

“You are in pain?” asked Leon, coming closer to her. 

“Oh, it’s nothing! No doubt, it is only the night air.” 

“And who doesn’t want for women, either,” softly 
added the sailor, thinking he was paying the stranger 
a compliment. 

Then, spitting on his hands, he took the oars again. 

Yet they had to part. The adieux were sad. He 
was to send his letters to Mere RoIIet, and she gave 
him such precise instructions about a double envelope 
that he admired greatly her amorous astuteness. 

“So you can assure me it is all right?” she said with 
her last kiss. 

“Yes, certainly.” 

“But why,” he thought afterwards as he came back 
through the streets alone, “is she so very anxious to 
get this power of attorney?” 


c 327 ] 


IV 


L EON soon put on an air of superiority before his 
comrades, avoided their company, and completely 
neglected his work. 

He waited for her letters; he re-read them; he wrote 
to her. He called her to mind with all the strength of 
his desires and of his memories. Instead of lessening 
with absence, this longing to see her again grew, so that 
at last on Saturday morning he escaped from his office. 

When, from the summit of the hill, he saw in the 
valley below the church-spire with its tin flag swinging 
in the wind, he felt that delight mingled with triumphant 
vanity and egoistic tenderness that millionaires must 
experience when they come back to their native village. 

He went rambling round her house. A light was 
burning in the kitchen. He watched for her shadow 
behind the curtains, but nothing appeared. 

Mere Lefran^ois, when she saw him, uttered many 
exclamations. She thought he “had grown and was 
thinner,” while Artemise, on the contrary, thought him 
stouter and darker. 

He dined in the little room as of yore, but alone, 
without the tax-gatherer; for Binet, tired of waiting 
for the “Hirondelle,” had definitely put forward his 
meal one hour, and now he dined punctually at five, 
and yet he declared usually the rickety old concern 
“was late.” 


[328] 


MADAME BOVARY 

Leon, however, made up his mind, and knocked at the 
doctor’s door. Madame was in her room, and did not 
come down for a quarter of an hour. The doctor seemed 
delighted to see him, but he never stirred out that even- 
ing, nor all the next day. 

He saw her alone in the evening, very late, behind 
the garden in the lane; — in the lane, as she had the 
other one! It was a stormy night, and they talked 
under an umbrella by lightning flashes. 

Their separation was becoming intolerable. “I would 
rather die!” said Emma. She was writhing in his arms, 
weeping. “Adieu! adieu! When shall I see you again?” 

They came back again to embrace once more, and it 
was then that she promised him to find soon, by no 
matter what means, a regular opportunity for seeing 
one another in freedom at least once a week. Emma 
never doubted she should be able to do this. Besides, 
she was full of hope. Some money was coming to her. 

On the strength of it she bought a pair of yellow cur- 
tains with large stripes for her room, whose cheapness 
Monsieur Lheureux had commended; she dreamed of 
getting a carpet, and Lheureux, declaring that it wasn’t 
“drinking the sea,” politely undertook to supply her with 
one. She could no longer do without his services. 
Twenty times a day she sent for him, and he at once 
put by his business without a murmur. People could 
not understand either why Mere RoIIet breakfasted 
with her every day, and even paid her private visits. 

It was about this time, that is to say, the beginning 
of winter, that she seemed seized with great musical 
fervour. 

One evening when Charles was listening to her, she 

[329] 


MADAME BOVARY 


began the same piece four times over, each time with 
much vexation, while he, not noticing any difference, 
cried — 

“Bravo! very good! You are wrong to stop. Go 
on!” 

“Oh, no; it is execrable! My fingers are quite 
rusty.” 

The next day he begged her to play him something 
again. 

“Very well; to please you!” 

And Charles confessed she had gone off a little. She 
played wrong notes and blundered; then, stopping 
short 

“Ah! it is no use. I ought to take some lessons; 

but ” She bit her lips and added, “Twenty francs 

a lesson, that’s too dear!” 

“Yes, so it is — rather,” said Charles, giggling stu- 
pidly. “But it seems to me that one might be able to 
do it for less; for there are artists of no reputation, 
and who are often better than the celebrities.” 

“Find them!” said Emma. 

The next day when he came home he looked at 
her shyly, and at last could no longer keep back the 
words. 

“How obstinate you are sometimes! I went to Bar- 
fucheres to-day. Well, Madame Liegard assured me 
that her three young ladies who are at La Misericorde 
have lessons at fifty sous apiece, and that from an ex- 
cellent mistress!” 

She shrugged her shoulders and did not open her 
piano again. But when she passed by it (if Bovary 
were there), she sighed — 

[ 330 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 

“Ah! my poor piano!” 

And when anyone came to see her, she did not fail 
to inform them she had given up music, and could not 
begin again now for important reasons. Then people 
commiserated her 

“What a pity! she had so much talent!” 

They even spoke to Bovary about it. They put him 
to shame, and especially the chemist. 

“You are wrong. One should never let any of the 
faculties of nature lie fallow. Besides, just think, my 
good friend, that by inducing madame to study, you are 
economising on the subsequent musical education of 
your child. For my own part, I think that mothers 
ought themselves to instruct their children. That is 
an idea of Rousseau’s, still rather new perhaps, but that 
will end by triumphing, I am certain of it, like mothers 
nursing their own children and vaccination.” 

So Charles returned once more to this question of the 
piano. Emma replied bitterly that it would be better 
to sell it. This poor piano, that had given her vanity 
so much satisfaction — to see it go was to Bovary like 
the indefinable suicide of a part of herself. 

“If you liked,” he said, “a lesson from time to time, 
that wouldn’t after all be very ruinous.” 

“But lessons,” she replied, “are only of use when 
followed up.” 

And thus it was she set about obtaining her husband’s 
permission to go to town once a week to see her lover. 
At the end of a month she was even considered to have 
made considerable progress. 


[331 ] 


V 


S HE went on Thursdays. She got up and dressed 
silently, in order not to awaken Charles, who would 
have made remarks about her getting ready too early. 
Next she walked up and down, went to the windows, 
and looked out at the Place. The early dawn was broad- 
ening between the pillars of the market, and the chemist's 
shop, with the shutters still up, showed in the pale light 
of the dawn the large letters of his signboard. 

When the clock pointed to a quarter past seven, 
she went off to the “Lion d’Or,” whose door Artemise 
opened yawning. The girl then made up the coals 
covered by the cinders, and Emma remained alone in 
the kitchen. Now and again she went out. Hivert 
was leisurely harnessing his horses, listening, moreover, 
to Mere Lefrangois, who, passing her head and nightcap 
through a grating, was charging him with commissions 
and giving him explanations that would have confused 
anyone else. Emma kept beating the soles of her boots 
against the pavement of the yard. 

At last, when he had eaten his soup, put on his cloak, 
lighted his pipe, and grasped his whip, he calmly installed 
himself on his seat. 

The “Hirondelle” started at a slow trot, and for 
about a mile stopped here and there to pick up pas- 
sengers who waited for it, standing at the border of the 
road, in front of their yard gates. 

C 332 3 


MADAME BOVARY 


Those who had secured seats the evening before kept 
it waiting; some even were still in bed in their houses. 
Hivert called, shouted, swore; then he got down from his 
seat and went and knocked loudly at the doors. The 
wind blew through the cracked windows. 

The four seats, however, filled up. The carriage 
rolled off; rows of apple-trees followed one upon another, 
and the road between its two long ditches, full of yellow 
water, rose, constantly narrowing towards the horizon. 

Emma knew it from end to end; she knew that after 
a meadow there was a sign-post, next an elm, a barn, 
or the hut of a lime-kiln tender. Sometimes even, in the 
hope of getting some surprise, she shut her eyes, but she 
never lost the clear perception of the distance to be 
traversed. 

At last the brick houses began to follow one another 
more closely, the earth resounded beneath the wheels, 
the “Hirondelle” glided between the gardens, where 
through an opening one saw statues, a periwinkle plant, 
clipped yews, and a swing. Then on a sudden the 
town appeared. Sloping down like an amphitheatre, 
and drowned in the fog, it widened out beyond the 
bridges confusedly. Then the open country spread 
away with a monotonous movement till it touched in the 
distance the vague line of the pale sky. Seen thus 
from above, the whole landscape looked immovable 
as a picture; the anchored ships were massed in one 
corner, the river curved round the foot of the green 
hills, and the isles, oblique in shape, lay on the water, 
like large, motionless, black fishes. The factory chim- 
neys belched forth immense brown fumes that were 
blown away at the top. One heard the rumbling of the 
C 333 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


foundries, together with the clear chimes of the churches 
that stood out in the mist. The leafless trees on the 
boulevards made violet thickets in the midst of the 
houses, and the roofs, all shining with the rain, threw 
back unequal reflections, according to the height of the 
quarters in which they were. Sometimes a gust of 
wind drove the clouds towards the Saint Catherine 
hills, like aerial waves that broke silently against a cliff. 

A giddiness seemed to her to detach itself from this 
mass of existence, and her heart swelled as if the hun- 
dred and twenty thousand souls that palpitated there 
had all at once sent into it the vapour of the passions 
she fancied theirs. Her love grew in the presence of 
this vastness, and expanded with tumult to the vague 
murmurings that rose towards her. She poured it out 
upon the square, on the walks, on the streets, and the 
old Norman city outspread before her eyes as an enor- 
mous capital, as a Babylon into which she was entering. 
She leant with both hands against the window, drinking 
in the breeze; the three horses galloped, the stones 
grated in the mud, the diligence rocked, and Hivert, 
from afar, hailed the carts on the road, while the bour- 
geois who had spent the night at the Guillaume woods 
came quietly down the hill in their little family carriages. 

They stopped at the barrier; Emma undid her over- 
shoes, put on other gloves, rearranged her shawl, and 
some twenty paces farther she got down from the “Hiron- 
deII e . ,, 

The town was then awakening. Shop-boys in caps 
were cleaning up the shop-fronts, and women with 
baskets against their hips, at intervals uttered sonorous' 
cries at the corners of streets. She walked with down- 

[334] 


MADAME BOVARY 


cast eyes, close to the walls, and smiling with pleasure 
under her lowered black veil. 

For fear of being seen, she did not usually take the 
most direct road. She plunged into dark alleys, and, all 
perspiring, reached the bottom of the Rue Nationale, 
near the fountain that stands there. It is the quarter 
for theatres, public-houses, and whores. Often a cart 
would pass near her, bearing some shaking scenery. 
Waiters in aprons were sprinkling sand on the flag- 
stones between green shrubs. It all smelt of absinthe, 
cigars, and oysters. 

She turned down a street; she recognised him by his 
curling hair that escaped from beneath his hat. 

Leon walked along the pavement. She followed 
him to the hotel. He went up, opened the door, en- 
tered What an embrace! 

Then, after the kisses, the words gushed forth. They 
told each other the sorrows of the week, the presenti- 
ments, the anxiety for the letters; but now everything 
was forgotten; they gazed into each other’s faces with 
voluptuous laughs, and tender names. 

The bed was large, of mahogany, in the shape of a 
boat. The curtains were in red Ievantine, that hung from 
the ceiling and bulged out too much towards the bell- 
shaped bedside; and nothing in the world was so lovely 
as her brown head and white skin standing out against 
this purple colour, when, with a movement of shame, 
she crossed her bare arms, hiding her face in her hands. 

The warm room, with its discreet carpet, its gay 
ornaments, and its calm light, seemed made for the 
intimacies of passion. The curtain-rods, ending in 
arrows, their brass pegs, and the great balls of the fire- 
[335 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


dogs shone suddenly when the sun came in. On the 
chimney between the candelabra there were two of those 
pink shells in which one hears the murmur of the sea if 
one holds them to the ear. 

How they loved that dear room, so full of gaiety, 
despite its rather faded splendour! They always found 
the furniture in the same place, and sometimes hairpins, 
that she had forgotten the Thursday before, under the 
pedestal of the clock. They lunched by the fireside 
on a little round table, inlaid with rosewood. Emma 
carved, put bits on his plate with all sorts of coquettish 
ways, and she laughed with a sonorous and libertine 
laugh when the froth of the champagne ran over from 
the glass to the rings on her fingers. They were so 
completely lost in the possession of each other that they 
thought themselves in their own house, and that they 
would live there till death, like two spouses eternally 
young. They said “our room,” “our carpet,” she even 
said “my slippers,” a gift of Leon’s, a whim she had had. 
They were pink satin, bordered with swansdown. When 
she sat on his knees, her leg, then too short, hung in the 
air, and the dainty shoe, that had no back to it, was 
held only by the toes to her bare foot. 

He for the first time enjoyed the inexpressible delicacy 
of feminine refinements. He had never met this grace 
of language, this reserve of clothing, these poses of the 
weary dove. He admired the exaltation of her soul 
and the lace on her petticoat. Besides, was she not 
“a lady” and a married woman — a real mistress, in 
fine? 

By the diversity of her humour, in turn mystical or 
mirthful, talkative, taciturn, passionate, careless, she 

[336] 


MADAME BOVARY 


awakened in him a thousand desires, called up instincts 
or memories. She was the mistress of all the novels, 
the heroine of all the dramas, the vague “she” of all the 
volumes of verse. He found again on her shoulder the 
amber colouring of the “Odalisque Bathing”; she had 
the long waist of feudal chatelaines, and she resembled 
the “Pale Woman of Barcelona.” But above all she 
was the Angel! 

Often looking at her, it seemed to him that his soul, 
escaping towards her, spread like a wave about the 
outline of her head, and descended drawn down into the 
whiteness of her breast. He knelt on the ground before 
her, and with both elbows on her knees looked at her 
with a smile, his face upturned. 

She bent over him, and murmured, as if choking 
with intoxication — 

“Oh, do not move! do not speak! look at me! Some- 
thing so sweet comes from your eyes that helps me so 
much!” 

She called him “child.” “Child, do you love me?” 

And she did not listen for his answer in the haste of 
her lips that fastened to his mouth. 

On the clock there was a bronze cupid, who smirked 
as he bent his arm beneath a golden garland. They 
had laughed at it many a time, but when they had to 
part everything seemed serious to them. 

Motionless in front of each other, they kept repeating, 
“Till Thursday, till Thursday.” 

Suddenly she seized his head between her hands, 
kissed him hurriedly on the forehead, crying, “Adieu!” 
and rushed down the stairs. 

She went to a hairdresser’s in the Rue de la Comedie 

C 337 D 


MADAME BOVARY 

to have her hair arranged. Night fell; the gas was 
lighted in the shop. She heard the bell at the theatre 
calling the mummers to the performance, and she saw, 
passing opposite, men with white faces and women in 
faded gowns going in at the stage-door. 

It was hot in the room, small, and too low, where the 
stove was hissing in the midst of wigs and pommades. 
The smell of the tongs, together with the greasy hands 
that handled her head, soon stunned her, and she dozed 
a little in her wrapper. Often, as he did her hair, the 
man offered her tickets for a masked ball. 

Then she went away. She went up the streets; reached 
the Croix-Rouge, put on her overshoes, that she had 
hidden in the morning under the seat, and sank into her 
place among the impatient passengers. Some got out 
at the foot of the hill. She remained alone in the car- 
riage. At every turning all the lights of the town were 
seen more and more completely, making a great luminous 
vapour about the dim houses. Emma knelt on the 
cushions, and her eyes wandered over the dazzling 
light. She sobbed; called on Leon, sent him tender 
words and kisses lost in the wind. 

On the hillside a poor devil wandered about with his 
stick in the midst of the diligences. A mass of rags 
covered his shoulders, and an old staved-in beaver, 
turned out like a basin, hid his face; but when he took 
it off he discovered in the place of eyelids empty and 
bloody orbits. The flesh hung in red shreds, and there 
flowed from it liquids that congealed into green scale 
down to the nose, whose black nostrils sniffed con- 
vulsively. To speak to you he threw back his head with 
an idiotic laugh; then his bluish eyeballs, rolling 

[338] 


con- 


MADAME BOVARY 

stantly, at the temples beat against the edge of the open 
wound. He sang a little song as he followed the car- 
riages — 

“ Maids in the warmth oj a summer day 
Dream of love , and oj love alway. yi 

And all the rest was about birds and sunshine and green 
leaves. 

Sometimes he appeared suddenly behind Emma, 
bareheaded, and she drew back with a cry. Hivert 
made fun of him. He would advise him to get a booth 
at the Saint Romain fair, or else ask him, laughing, how 
his young woman was. 

Often they had started when, with a sudden movement, 
his hat entered the diligence through the small window, 
while he clung with his other arm to the footboard, 
between the wheels splashing mud. His voice, feeble 
at first and quavering, grew sharp; it resounded in the 
night like the indistinct moan of a vague distress; and 
through the ringing of the bells, the murmur of the trees, 
and the rumbling of the empty vehicle, it had a far-off 
sound that disturbed Emma. It went to the bottom 
of her soul, like a whirlwind in an abyss, and carried 
her away into the distances of a boundless melancholy. 
But Hivert, noticing a weight behind, gave the blind 
man sharp cuts with his whip. The thong lashed his 
wounds, and he fell back into the mud with a yell. Then 
the passengers in the “Hirondelle” ended by falling 
asleep, some with open mouths, others with lowered 
chins, leaning against their neighbour’s shoulder, or 
with their arm passed through the strap, oscillating regu- 
larly with the jolting of the carriage; and the reflection 

[ 339] 


MADAME BOVARY 


of the lantern swinging without, on the crupper of the 
wheeler, penetrating into the interior through the choco- 
late calico curtains, threw sanguineous shadows over all 
these motionless people. Emma, drunk with grief, 
shivered in her clothes, feeling her feet grow colder and 
colder, and death in her soul. 

Charles at home was waiting for her; the “ Hirondelle ” 
was always late on Thursdays. Madame arrived at 
last, and scarcely kissed the child. The dinner was not 
ready. No matter! She excused the servant. This 
girl now seemed allowed to do just as she liked. 

Often her husband, noting her pallor, asked if she were 
unwell. 

“No,” said Emma. 

“But,” he replied, “you seem so strange this evening.” 

“Oh, it’s nothing! nothing!” 

There were even days when she had no sooner come in 
than she went up to her room; and Justin, happening 
to be there, moved about noiselessly, quicker at helping 
her than the best of maids. He put the matches ready, 
the candlestick, a book, arranged her nightgown, turned 
back the bedclothes. 

“Come!” said she, “that will do. Now you can go.” 

For he stood there, his hands hanging down and his 
eyes wide open, as if enmeshed in the innumerable threads 
of a sudden reverie. 

The following day was frightful, and those that came 
after still more unbearable, because of her impatience 
to once again seize her happiness; an ardent lust, in- 
flamed by the images of past experience, and that burst 
forth freely on the seventh day beneath Leon’s caresses. 
His ardours were hidden beneath outbursts of wonder 
[340] 


MADAME BOVARY 


and gratitude. Emma tasted this love in a discreet, 
absorbed fashion, maintained it by all the artifices of 
her tenderness, and trembled a little lest it should be 
lost later on. 

She often said to him, with her sweet, melancholy 
voice — 

“Ah! you too, you will leave me! You will marry! 
You will be like all the others.” 

He asked, “What others?” 

“Why, like all men,” she replied. Then added, re- 
pulsing him with a languid movement — 

“You are all evil!” 

One day, as they were talking philosophically of 
earthly disillusions, to experiment on his jealousy, or 
yielding, perhaps, to an over-strong need to pour out 
her heart, she told him that formerly, before him, she 
had loved someone. “Not like you,” she went on 
quickly, protesting by the head of her child that “ nothing 
had passed between them.” 

The young man believed her, but none the less ques- 
tioned her to find out what he was. 

“He was a ship’s captain, my dear.” 

Was this not preventing any inquiry, and, at the 
same time, assuming a higher ground through this 
pretended fascination exercised over a man who must 
have been of warlike nature and accustomed to receive 
homage? 

The clerk then felt the lowliness of his position; he 
longed for epaulettes, crosses, titles. All that would 
please her, — he gathered that from her spendthrift 
habits. 

Emma nevertheless concealed many of these extrava- 

[ 341 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


gant fancies, such as her wish to have a blue tilbury 
to drive into Rouen, drawn by an English horse and 
driven by a groom in top-boots. It was Justin who had 
inspired her with this whim, by begging her to take him 
into her service as valet-de-chambre , and if the privation 
of it did not lessen the pleasure of her arrival at each 
rendezvous, it certainly augmented the bitterness of 
the return. 

Often, when they talked together of Paris, she ended 
by murmuring, “Ah! how happy we should be there !” 

“Are we not happy?” gently answered the young man, 
passing his hands over her hair. 

“Yes, that is true,” she said. “I am mad. Kiss me!” 

To her husband she was more charming than ever. 
She made him pistachio-creams, and played him waltzes 
after dinner. So he thought himself the most fortunate 
of men, and Emma was without uneasiness, when, one 
evening, suddenly he said — 

“It is Mademoiselle Lempereur, isn’t it, who gives 
you lessons?” 

“Yes.” 

“Well, I saw her just now,” Charles went on, “at 
Madame Liegeard’s. I spoke to her about you, and 
she doesn’t know you.” 

This was like a thunderclap. However, she replied 
quite naturally — 

“Ah! no doubt she forgot my name.” 

“But perhaps,” said the doctor, “there are several 
Demoiselles Lempereur at Rouen who are music-mis- 
tresses.” 

“Possibly!” Then quickly — “But I have my re- 
ceipts here. See!” 

C 342 3 


MADAME BOVARY 


And she went to the writing-table, ransacked all the 
drawers, rummaged the papers, and at last lost her head 
so completely that Charles earnestly begged her not to 
take so much trouble about those wretched receipts. 

“Oh, I will find them,” she said. 

And, in fact, on the following Friday, as Charles was 
putting on one of his boots in the dark cabinet where 
his clothes were kept, he felt a piece of paper between 
the leather and his sock. He took it out and read — 

“Received, for three months’ lessons and several 
pieces of music, the sum of sixty-three francs. — Felicie 
Lempereur, professor of music.” 

“How the devil did it get into my boots?” 

“It must,” she replied, “have fallen from the old box 
of bills that is on the edge of the shelf.” 

From that moment her existence was but one long 
tissue of lies, in which she enveloped her love as in veils 
to hide it. It was a want, a mania, a pleasure carried 
to such an extent that if she said she had the day before 
walked on the right side of a road, one might know she 
had taken the left. 

One morning, when she had gone, as usual, rather 
lightly clothed, it suddenly began to snow, and as Charles 
was watching the weather from the window, he caught 
sight of Monsieur Bournisien in the chaise of Monsieur 
Tuvache, who was driving him to Rouen. Then he 
went down to give the priest a thick shawl that he was 
to hand over to Emma as soon as he reached the “Croix- 
Rouge.” When he got to the inn, Monsieur Bournisien 
asked for the wife of the Yonville doctor. The landlady 
replied that she very rarely came to her establishment. 
So that evening, when he recognised Madame Bovary 
[ 343 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


in the “Hirondelle,” the cure told her his dilemma, 
without, however, appearing to attach much importance 
to it, for he began praising a preacher who was doing 
wonders at the Cathedral, and whom all the ladies were 
rushing to hear. 

Still, if he did not ask for any explanation, others, 
later on, might prove less discreet. So she thought well 
to get down each time at the “ Croix-Rouge,” so that 
the good folk of her village who saw her on the stairs 
should suspect nothing. 

One day, however, Monsieur Lheureux met her coming 
out of the Hotel de Boulogne on Leon’s arm; and she 
was frightened, thinking he would gossip. He was not 
such a fool. But three days after he came to her room, 
shut the door, and said, “ I must have some money.” 

She declared she could not give him any. Lheureux 
burst into lamentations, and reminded her of all the 
kindnesses he had shown her. 

In fact, of the two bills signed by Charles, Emma up 
to the present had paid only one. As to the second, the 
shop-keeper, at her request, had consented to replace 
it by another, which again had been renewed for a long 
date. Then he drew from his pocket a list of goods not 
paid for; to wit, the curtains, the carpet, the material 
for the arm-chairs, several dresses, and divers articles 
of dress, the bills for which amounted to about two 
thousand francs. 

She bowed her head. He went on — 

“But if you haven’t any ready money, you have an 
estate.” And he reminded her of a miserable little 
hovel situated at Barneville, near Aumale, that brought 
in almost nothing. It had formerly been part of a small 
[ 344 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 

farm sold by Monsieur Bovary senior; for Lheureux 
knew everything, even to the number of acres and the 
names of the neighbours. 

“If I were in your place,” he said, “I should clear 
myself of my debts, and have some money left over.” 

She pointed out the difficulty of getting a purchaser. 
He held out the hope of finding one; but she asked him 
how she should manage to sell it. 

“Haven’t you your power of attorney?” he replied. 

The phrase came to her like a breath of fresh air. 
“Leave me the bill,” said Emma. 

“Oh, it isn’t worth while,” answered Lheureux. 

He came back the following week and boasted of 
having, after much trouble, at last discovered a certain 
Langlois, who, for a long time, had had an eye on the 
property, but without mentioning his price. 

“Never mind the price!” she cried. 

But they would, on the contrary, have to wait, to sound 
the fellow. The thing was worth a journey, and, as she 
could not undertake it, he offered to go to the place to 
have an interview with Langlois. On his return he an- 
nounced that the purchaser proposed four thousand francs. 

Emma was radiant at this news. 

“Frankly,” he added, “that’s a good price.” 

She drew half the sum at once, and when she was 
about to pay her account the shopkeeper said — 

“It really grieves me, on my word! to see you 
depriving yourself all at once of such a big sum as 
that.” 

Then she looked at the bank-notes, and dreaming of 
the unlimited number of rendezvous represented by 
those two thousand francs, she stammered — 

[345 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“What! what!” 

“Oh!” he went on, laughing good-naturedly, “one 
puts anything one likes on receipts. Don’t you think 
I know what household affairs are?” And he looked at 
her fixedly, while in his hand he held two long papers 
that he slid between his nails. At last, opening his 
pocket-book, he spread out on the table four bills to 
order, each for a thousand francs. 

“Sign these,” he said, “and keep it all!” 

She cried out, scandalised. 

“But if I give you the surplus,” replied Monsieur 
Lheureux impudently, “is that not helping you?” 

And taking a pen he wrote at the bottom of the ac- 
count, “Received of Madame Bovary four thousand 
francs.” 

“Now who can trouble you, since in six months you’ll 
draw the arrears for your cottage, and I don’t make the 
last bill due till after you’ve been paid?” 

Emma grew rather confused in her calculations, and 
her ears tingled as if gold pieces, bursting from their 
bags, rang all round her on the floor. At last Lheureux 
explained that he had a very good friend, Vin^art, a 
broker at Rouen, who would discount these four bills. 
Then he himself would hand over to madame the re- 
mainder after the actual debt was paid. 

But instead of two thousand francs he brought only 
eighteen hundred, for the friend Vin^art (which was 
only Jair ) had deducted two hundred francs for com- 
mission and discount. Then he carelessly asked for 
a receipt. 

“You understand — in business — sometimes. And 
with the date, if you please, with the date.” 

[346] 


MADAME BOVARY 


A horizon of realisable whims opened out before Emma. 
She was prudent enough to lay by a thousand crowns, 
with which the first three bills were paid when they fell 
due; but the fourth, by chance, came to the house on 
a Thursday, and Charles, quite upset, patiently awaited 
his wife’s return for an explanation. 

If she had not told him about this bill, it was only to 
spare him such domestic worries; she sat on his knees, 
caressed him, cooed to him, gave a long enumeration 
of all the indispensable things that had been got on 
credit. 

“Really, you must confess, considering the quantity, 
it isn’t too dear.” 

Charles, at his wit’s end, soon had recourse to the 
eternal Lheureux, who swore he would arrange matters 
if the doctor would sign him two bills, one of which was 
for seven hundred francs, payable in three months. In 
order to arrange for this he wrote his mother a pathetic 
letter. Instead of sending a reply she came herself; 
and when Emma wanted to know whether he had got 
anything out of her, “Yes,” he replied; “but she wants 
to see the account.” The next morning at daybreak 
Emma ran to Lheureux to beg him to make out another 
account for not more than a thousand francs, for to show 
the one for four thousand it would be necessary to say 
that she had paid two-thirds, and confess, consequently, 
the sale of the estate — a negotiation admirably carried 
out by the shopkeeper, and which, in fact, was only 
actually known later on. 

Despite the low price of each article, Madame Bovary 
senior, of course, thought the expenditure extravagant. 

“Couldn’t you do without a carpet? Why have re- 
C 347 3 


MADAME BOVARY 


covered the arm-chairs? In my time there was a single 
arm-chair in a house, for elderly persons, — at any rate 
it was so at my mother’s, who was a good woman, I can 
tell you. Everybody can’t be rich! No fortune can 
hold out against waste! I should be ashamed to coddle 
myself as you do! And yet I am old. I need looking 
after. And there! there! fitting up gowns! fallals! What! 
silk for lining at two francs, when you can get jaconet 
for ten sous, or even for eight, that would do well 
enough!” 

Emma, lying on a lounge, replied as quietly as possible 
— “Ah! Madame, enough! enough!” 

The other went on lecturing her, predicting they would 
end in the workhouse. But it was Bovary’s fault. 
Luckily he had promised to destroy that power of at- 
torney. 

“What?” 

“Ah! he swore he would,” went on the good woman. 

Emma opened the window, called Charles, and the 
poor fellow was obliged to confess the promise torn from 
him by his mother. 

Emma disappeared, then came back quickly, and 
majestically handed her a thick piece of paper. 

“Thank you,” said the old woman. And she threw 
the power of attorney into the fire. 

Emma began to laugh, a strident, piercing, continuous 
laugh; she had an attack of hysterics. 

“Oh, my God!” cried Charles. “Ah! you really are 
wrong! You come here and make scenes with her!” 

His mother, shrugging her shoulders, declared it was 
“all put on.” 

But Charles, rebelling for the first time, took his wife’s 

[348] 


MADAME BOVARY 


part, so that Madame Bovary, senior, said she would 
leave. She went the very next day, and on the threshold, 
as he was trying to detain her, she replied — 

“No, no! You love her better than me, and you are 
right. It is natural. For the rest, so much the worse! 
You will see. Good day — for I am not likely to come 
soon again, as you say, to make scenes.” 

Charles nevertheless was very crestfallen before Emma, 
who did not hide the resentment she still felt at his want 
of confidence, and it needed many prayers before she 
would consent to have another power of attorney. He 
even accompanied her to Monsieur Guillaumin to have 
a second one, just like the other, drawn up. 

“I understand,” said the notary; “a man of science 
can’t be worried with the practical details of life.” 

And Charles felt relieved by this comfortable reflection, 
which gave his weakness the flattering appearance of 
higher pre-occupation. 

And what an outburst the next Thursday at the hotel 
in their room with Leon! She laughed, cried, sang, 
sent for sherbets, wanted to smoke cigarettes, seemed to 
him wild and extravagant, but adorable, superb. 

He did not know what recreation of her whole being 
drove her more and more to plunge into the pleasures of 
life. She was becoming irritable, greedy, voluptuous; 
and she walked about the streets with him carrying her 
head high, without fear, so she said, of compromising 
herself. At times, however, Emma shuddered at the 
sudden thought of meeting Rodolphe, for it seemed to 
her that, although they were separated forever, she was 
not completely free from her subjugation to him. 

One night she did not return to Yonville at all. Charles 

[ 349 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


lost his head with anxiety, and little Berthe would not 
go to bed without her mamma, and sobbed enough to 
break her heart. Justin had gone out searching the 
road at random. Monsieur Homais even had left his 
pharmacy. 

At last, at eleven o’clock, able to bear it no longer, 
Charles harnessed his chaise, jumped in, whipped up his 
horse, and reached the “Croix-Rouge” about two o’clock 
in the morning. No one there! He thought that the 
clerk had perhaps seen her; but where did he live? 
Happily, Charles remembered his employer’s address, 
and rushed off there. 

Day was breaking, and he could distinguish the 
escutcheons over the door, and knocked. Someone, 
without opening the door, shouted out the required 
information, adding a few insults to those who disturb 
people in the middle of the night. 

The house inhabited by the clerk had neither bell, 
knocker, nor porter. Charles knocked loudly at the 
shutters with his hands. A policeman happened to pass 
by. Then he was frightened, and went away. 

“I am mad,” he said; “no doubt they kept her to 
dinner at Monsieur Lormeaux’.” But the Lormeaux 
no longer lived at Rouen. 

“She probably stayed to look after Madame Dubreuil. 
Why, Madame Dubreuil has been dead these ten months! 
Where can she be?” 

An idea occurred to him. At a cafe he asked for a 
Directory, and hurriedly looked for the name of Made- 
moiselle Lempereur, who lived at No. 74 Rue de la 
Renelle-des-Maroquiniers. 

As he was turning into the street, Emma herself ap- 

[350] 


MADAME BOVARY 

peared at the other end of it. He threw himself upon 
her rather than embraced her, crying — 

“What kept you yesterday?” 

“I was not well.” 

“What was it? Where? How?” 

She passed her hand over her forehead and answered, 
“At Mademoiselle Lempereur’s.” 

“I was sure of it! I was going there.” 

“Oh, it isn’t worth while,” said Emma. “She went 
out just now; but for the future don’t worry. I do not 
feel free, you see, if I know that the least delay upsets 
you like this.” 

This was a sort of permission that she gave herself, 
so as to get perfect freedom in her escapades. And she 
profited by it freely, fully. When she was seized with 
the desire to see Leon, she set out upon any pretext; 
and as he was not expecting her on that day, she went to 
fetch him at his office. 

It was a great delight at first, but soon he no longer 
concealed the truth, which was, that his master com- 
plained very much about these interruptions. 

“Pshaw! come along,” she said. 

And he slipped out. 

She wanted him to dress all in black, and grow a 
pointed beard, to look like the portraits of Louis XIII. 
She wanted to see his lodgings; thought them poor. 
He blushed at them, but she did not notice this, then 
advised him to buy some curtains like hers, and as he 
objected to the expense — 

“Ah! ah! you care for your money,” she said laughing. 

Each time Leon had to tell her everything that he had 
done since their last meeting. She asked him for some 
C 351 1 


MADAME BOVARY 


verses — some verses “for herself,” a “love poem” 
in honour of her. But he never succeeded in getting 
a rhyme for the second verse; and at last ended by copy- 
ing a sonnet in a “Keepsake.” This was less from vanity 
than from the one desire of pleasing her. He did not 
question her ideas; he accepted all her tastes; he was 
rather becoming her mistress than she his. She had 
tender words and kisses that thrilled his soul. Where 
could she have learnt this corruption almost incorporeal 
in the strength of its profanity and dissimulation? 


D 352 ] 


VI 


TOURING the journeys he made to see her, Leon had 
often dined at the chemist's, and he felt obliged 
from politeness to invite him in turn. 

“With pleasure!” Monsieur Homais replied; “besides, 
I must invigorate my mind, for I am getting rusty here. 
We'II go to the theatre, to the restaurant; we’II make a 
night of it!” 

“Oh, my dear!” tenderly murmured Madame Homais, 
alarmed at the vague perils he was preparing to brave. 

“Well, what? Do you think I'm not sufficiently 
ruining my health living here amid the continual ema- 
nations of the pharmacy? But there! that is the way 
with women! They are jealous of science, and then 
are opposed to our taking the most legitimate dis- 
tractions. No matter! Count upon me. One of these 
days I shall turn up at Rouen, and we’II go the pace 
together.” 

The druggist would formerly have taken good care not 
to use such an expression, but he was cultivating a gay 
Parisian style, which he thought in the best taste; and, 
like his neighbour, Madame Bovary, he questioned the 
clerk curiously about the customs of the capital; he even 
talked slang to dazzle the bourgeois, saying bender , 
crummy , dandy , maccaroni , the cheese , cut my stick and 
“I'll hook it” for “I am going.” 

So one Thursday Emma was surprised to meet Mon- 

[353] 


MADAME BOVARY 


sieur Homais in the kitchen of the “Lion d’Or,” wearing 
a traveller’s costume, that is to say, wrapped in an old 
cloak which no one knew he had, while he carried a 
valise in one hand and the foot-warmer of his establish- 
ment in the other. He had confided his intentions 
to no one, for fear of causing the public anxiety by his 
absence. 

The idea of seeing again the place where his youth 
had been spent no doubt excited him, for during the 
whole journey he never ceased talking, and as soon as 
he had arrived, he jumped quickly out of the diligence 
to go in search of Leon. In vain the clerk tried to get 
rid of him. Monsieur Homais dragged him off to the 
large Cafe de la Normandie, which he entered majesti- 
cally, not raising his hat, thinking it very provincial 
to uncover in any public place. 

Emma waited for Leon three quarters of an hour. 
At last she ran to his office, and, lost in all sorts of con- 
jectures, accusing him of indifference, and reproaching 
herself for her weakness, she spent the afternoon, her 
face pressed against the window-panes. 

At two o’clock they were still at table opposite each 
other. The large room was emptying; the stove-pipe, 
in the shape of a palm-tree, spread its gilt leaves over the 
white ceiling, and near them, outside the window, in the 
bright sunshine, a little fountain gurgled in a white 
basin, where, in the midst of watercress and asparagus, 
three torpid lobsters stretched across to some quails 
that lay heaped up in a pile on their sides. 

Homais was enjoying himself. Although he was even 
more intoxicated with the luxury than the rich fare, the 
Pomard wine all the same rather excited his faculties; 
C 354 U . 


MADAME BOVARY 


and when the omelette au rhum appeared, he began 
propounding immoral theories about women. What 
seduced him above all else was chic. He admired an 
elegant toilette in a well-furnished apartment, and as 
to bodily qualities, he didn’t dislike a young girl. 

Leon watched the clock in despair. The druggist 
went on drinking, eating, and talking. 

“You must be very lonely,” he said suddenly, “here 
at Rouen. To be sure your lady-love doesn’t live far 
away.” 

And the other blushed — 

“Come now, be frank. Can you deny that at 
Yonville ” 

The young man stammered something. 

“At Madame Bovary’s, you’re not making love 
to ” 

“To whom?” 

“The servant!” 

He was not joking; but vanity getting the better of all 
prudence, Leon, in spite of himself protested. Besides, 
he only liked dark women. 

“I approve of that,” said the chemist; “they have 
more passion.” 

And whispering into his friend’s ear, he pointed out 
the symptoms by which one could find out if a woman 
had passion. He even launched into an ethnographic 
digression: the German was vapourish, the French 
woman licentious, the Italian passionate. 

“And negresses?” asked the clerk. 

“They are an artistic taste!” said Homais. “Waiter! 
two cups of coffee!” 

“Are we going?” at last asked Leon impatiently. 

C 355 n 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Jcl!” 

But before leaving he wanted to see the proprietor 
of the establishment and made him a few compliments. 
Then the young man, to be alone, alleged he had some 
business engagement. 

“Ah! I will escort you,” said Homais. 

And all the while he was walking through the streets 
with him he talked of his wife, his children, of their 
future, and of his business; told him in what a decayed 
condition it had formerly been, and to what a degree 
of perfection he had raised it. 

Arrived in front of the Hotel de Boulogne, Leon left 
him abruptly, ran up the stairs, and found his mistress 
in great excitement. At mention of the chemist she 
flew into a passion. He, however, piled up good reasons; 
it wasn’t his fault; didn’t she know Homais — did 
she believe that he would prefer his company? But she 
turned away; he drew her back, and, sinking on his knees, 
clasped her waist with his arms in a languorous pose, 
full of concupiscence and supplication. 

She was standing up, her large flashing eyes looked 
at him seriously, almost terribly. Then tears obscured 
them, her red eyelids were lowered, she gave him her 
hands, and Leon was pressing them to his lips when a 
servant appeared to tell the gentleman that he was 
wanted. 

“You will come back?” she said. 

“Yes.” 

“But when?” 

“ Immediately.” 

“It’s a trick,” said the chemist, when he saw Leon. 
“I wanted to interrupt this visit, that seemed to me to 

[356] 


MADAME BOVARY 

annoy you. Let’s go and have a glass of garus at Bri- 
doux’.” 

Leon vowed that he must get back to his office. Then 
the druggist joked him about quill-drivers and the law. 

“Leave Cujas and Barthole alone a bit. Who the 
devil prevents you? Be a man! Let’s go to Bridoux’. 
You’ll see his dog. It’s very interesting.” 

And as the clerk still insisted — 

“I’ll go with you. I’ll read a paper while I wait for 
you, or turn over the leaves of a ‘Code.’ ” 

Leon, bewildered by Emma’s anger, Monsieur Homais’ 
chatter, and, perhaps, by the heaviness of the luncheon, 
was undecided, and, as it were, fascinated by the chemist, 
who kept repeating — 

“Let’s go to Bridoux’. It’s just by here, in the Rue 
Malpalu.” 

Then, through cowardice, through stupidity, through 
that indefinable feeling that drags us into the most 
distasteful acts, he allowed himself to be led off to Bri- 
doux’, whom they found in his small yard, superintending 
three workmen, who panted as they turned the large 
wheel of a machine for making seltzer-water. Homais 
gave them some good advice. He embraced Bridoux; 
they took some garus. Twenty times Leon tried to 
escape, but the other seized him by the arm saying — 

“Presently! I’m coming! We’II go to the ‘Fanal de 
Rouen’ to see the fellows there. I’ll introduce you to 
Thomassin.” 

At last he managed to get rid of him, and rushed 
straight to the hotel. Emma was no longer there. 
She had just gone in a fit of anger. She detested him 
now. This failing to keep their rendezvous seemed to 

[357] 


MADAME BOVARY 


her an insult, and she tried to rake up other reasons 
to separate herself from him. He was incapable of 
heroism, weak, banal, more spiritless than a woman, 
avaricious too, and cowardly. 

Then, growing calmer, she at length discovered that she 
had, no doubt, calumniated him. But the disparaging 
of those we love always alienates us from them to some 
extent. We must not touch our idols; the gilt sticks 
to our fingers. 

They gradually came to talking more frequently of 
matters outside their love, and in the letters that Emma 
wrote him she spoke of flowers, verses, the moon and the 
stars, naive resources of a waning passion striving to keep 
itself alive by all external aids. She was constantly 
promising herself a profound felicity on her next journey. 
Then she confessed to herself that she felt nothing ex- 
traordinary. This disappointment quickly gave way to 
a new hope, and Emma returned to him more inflamed, 
more eager than ever. She undressed brutally, tearing 
off the thin laces of her corset that nestled around her 
hips like a gliding snake. She went on tiptoe, bare- 
footed, to see once more that the door was closed, then, 
pale, serious, and, without speaking, with one movement, 
she threw herself upon his breast with a long shudder. 

Yet there was upon that brow covered with cold 
drops, on those quivering lips, in those wild eyes, in the 
strain of those arms, something vague and dreary that 
seemed to Leon to glide between them subtly as if to 
separate them. 

He did not dare to question her; but, seeing her so 
skilled, she must have passed, he thought, through every 
experience of suffering and of pleasure. What had 

[358] 


MADAME BOVARY 


once charmed now frightened him a little. Besides, 
he rebelled against his absorption, daily more marked, 
by her personality. He begrudged Emma this constant 
victory. He even strove not to love her; then, when he 
heard the creaking of her boots, he turned coward, 
like drunkards at the sight of strong drinks. 

She did not fail, in truth, to lavish all sorts of atten- 
tions upon him, from the delicacies of food to the coquet- 
tries of dress and languishing looks. She brought roses 
in her breast from Yonville, which she threw into his 
face; was anxious about his health, gave him advice 
as to his conduct; and, in order the more surely to keep 
her hold on him, hoping perhaps that heaven would 
take her part, she tied a medal of the Virgin round his 
neck. She inquired like a virtuous mother about his 
companions. She said to him — 

“Don’t see them; don’t go out; think only of ourselves; 
love me!” 

She would have liked to be able to watch over his life, 
and the idea occurred to her of having him followed in 
the streets. Near the hotel there was always a kind 
of loafer who accosted travellers, and who would not 
refuse. But her pride revolted at this. 

“Bah! so much the worse. Let him deceive me! 
What does it matter to me? As if I cared for him!” 

One day, when they had parted early and she was 
returning alone along the boulevard, she saw the walls of 
her convent; then she sat down on a form in the shade 
of the elm-trees. How calm that time had been! How 
she longed for the ineffable sentiments of love that she 
had tried to figure to herself out of books! The first 
month of her marriage, her rides in the wood, the vis- 

C 359 3 


MADAME BOVARY 


count that waltzed, and Lagardy singing, all repassed 
before her eyes. And Leon suddenly appeared to her 
as far off as the others. 

“Yet I love him,” she said to herself. 

No matter! She was not happy — she never had 
been. Whence came this insufficiency in life — this 
instantaneous turning to decay of everything on which 
she leant? But if there were somewhere a being strong 
and beautiful, a valiant nature, full at once of exaltation 
and refinement, a poet’s heart in an angel’s form, a lyre 
with sounding chords ringing out elegaic epithalamia 
to heaven, why, perchance, should she not find him? 
Ah! how impossible! Besides, nothing was worth the 
trouble of seeking it; everything was a lie. Every 
smile hid a yawn of boredom, every joy a curse, all 
pleasure satiety, and the sweetest kisses left upon your 
lips only the unattainable desire for a greater delight. 

A metallic clang droned through the air, and four 
strokes were heard from the convent-clock. Four o’clock! 
And it seemed to her that she had been there on that 
form an eternity. But an infinity of passions may be 
contained in a minute, like a crowd in a small space. 

Emma lived all absorbed in hers, and troubled no 
more about money matters than an archduchess. 

Once, however, a wretched-looking man, rubicund and 
bald, came to her house, saying he had been sent by 
Monsieur Vin^art of Rouen. He took out the pins that 
held together the side-pockets of his long green overcoat, 
stuck them into his sleeve, and politely handed her a 
paper. 

It was a bill for seven hundred francs, signed by her, 
and which Lheureux, in spite of all his professions, had 
[360] 


MADAME BOVARY 


paid away to Vingart. She sent her servant for him. 
He could not come. Then the stranger, who had re- 
mained standing, casting right and left curious glances, 
that his thick, fair eyebrows hid, asked with a naive air — 

“What answer am I to take Monsieur Vin£art?” 

“Oh,” said Emma, “tell him that I haven’t it. I will 
send next week; he must wait; yes, till next week.” 

And the fellow went without another word. 

But the next day at twelve o’clock she received a 
summons, and the sight of the stamped paper, on which 
appeared several times in large letters, “Maitre Hareng, 
bailiff at Buchy,” so frightened her that she rushed in 
hot haste to the Iinendraper’s. She found him in his 
shop, doing up a parcel. 

“Your obedient!” he said; “I am at your service.” 

But Lheureux, all the same, went on with his work, 
helped by a young girl of about thirteen, somewhat 
hunchbacked, who was at once his clerk and his servant. 

Then, his clogs clattering on the shop-boards, he went 
up in front of Madame Bovary to the first door, and 
introduced her into a narrow closet, where, in a large 
bureau in sapon-wood, lay some ledgers, protected by 
a horizontal padlocked iron bar. Against the wall, 
under some remnants of calico, one glimpsed a safe, 
but of such dimensions" that it must contain something 
besides bills and money. Monsieur Lheureux, in fact, 
went in for pawnbroking, and it was there that he had 
put Madame Bovary’s gold chain, together with the 
earrings of poor old Tellier, who, at last forced to sell 
out, had bought a meagre store of grocery at Quincam- 
poix, where he was dying of catarrh amongst his candles, 
that were less yellow than his face. 

[361] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Lheureux sat down in a large cane arm-chair, saying: 
“What news?” 

“See!” 

And she showed him the paper. 

“Well how can I help it?” 

Then she grew angry, reminding him of the promise 
he had given not to pay away her bills. He acknowl- 
edged it. 

[ “But I was pressed myself; the knife was at my own 
throat.” 

“And what will happen now?” she went on. 

“Oh, it's very simple; a judgment and then a distraint 
— that’s about it!” 

Emma kept down a desire to strike him, and asked 
gently if there was no way of quieting Monsieur Vin^art. 

“I dare say! Quiet Vinsart! You don’t know him; 
he’s more ferocious than an Arab!” 

Still Monsieur Lheureux must interfere. 

“Well, listen. It seems to me so far I’ve been very 
good to you.” And opening one of his ledgers, “See,” 
he said. Then running up the page with his finger, 
“Let’s see! let’s see! August 3d, two hundred francs; 
June 17th, a hundred and fifty; March 23d, forty-six. 
In April ” 

He stopped, as if afraid of making some mistake. 

“Not to speak of the bills signed by Monsieur Bovary, 
one for seven hundred francs, and another for three 
hundred. As to your little instalments, with the in- 
terest, why, there’s no end to ’em; one gets quite muddled 
over ’em. I’ll have nothing more to do with it.” 

She wept; she even called him “her good Monsieur 
Lheureux.” But he always fell back upon “that rascal 
[ 362 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 

Vin^art.” Besides, he hadn’t a brass farthing; no one 
was paying him now-a-days; they were eating his coat 
off his back; a poor shopkeeper like him couldn’t ad- 
vance money. 

Emma was silent, and Monsieur Lheureux, who was 
biting the feathers of a quill, no doubt became uneasy 
at her silence, for he went on — 

“ Unless one of these days I have something coming 
in, I might ” 

“Besides,” said she, “as soon as the balance of Barne- 

ville ” 

“What!” 

And on hearing that Langlois had not yet paid he 
seemed much surprised. Then in a honied voice — 

“And we agree, you say?” 

“Oh! to anything you like.” 

On this he closed his eyes to reflect, wrote down a 
few figures, and declaring it would be very difficult 
for him, that the affair was shady, and that he was being 
bled, he wrote out four bills for two hundred and fifty 
francs each, to fall due month by month. 

“Provided that Vin^art will listen to me! However, 
it’s settled. I don’t play the fool; I’m straight enough.” 

Next he carelessly showed her several new goods, not 
one of which, however, was in his opinion worthy of 
madame. 

“When I think that there’s a dress at threepence- 
half-penny a yard, and warranted fast colours! And 
yet they actually swallow it! Of course you understand 
one doesn’t tell them what it really is!” He hoped by 
this confession of dishonesty to others to quite convince 
her of his probity to her. 

C 363 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Then he called her back to show her three yards of 
guipure that he had lately picked up “at a sale.” 

“Isn’t it lovely?” said Lheureux. “It is very much 
used now for the backs of arm-chairs. It’s quite the 
rage.” 

And, more ready than a juggler, he wrapped up the 
guipure in some blue paper and put it in Emma’s hands. 

“But at least let me know ” 

“Yes, another time,” he replied, turning on his heel. 

That same evening she urged Bovary to write to his 
mother, to ask her to send as quickly as possible the 
whole of the balance due from the father’s estate. The 
mother-in-law replied that she had nothing more, the 
winding up was over, and there was due to them besides 
Barneville an income of six hundred francs, that she 
would pay them punctually. 

Then Madame Bovary sent in accounts to two or three 
patients, and she made large use of this method, which 
was very successful. She was always careful to add a 
postscript: “Do not mention this to my husband; you 
know how proud he is. Excuse me. Yours obediently.” 
There were some complaints; she intercepted them. 

To get money she began selling her old gloves, her old 
hats, the old odds and ends, and she bargained rapa- 
ciously, her peasant blood standing her in good stead. 
Then on her journey to town she picked up nick-nacks 
second-hand, that, in default of anyone else, Monsieur 
Lheureux would certainly take off her hands. She 
bought ostrich feathers, Chinese porcelain, and trunks; 
she borrowed from Felicite, from Madame Lefrangois, 
from the landlady at the Croix Rouge, from everybody, 
no matter where. With the money she at last received 

[364] 


MADAME BOVARY 


from Barneville she paid two bills; the other fifteen 
hundred francs fell due. She renewed the bills, and 
thus it was continually. 

Sometimes, it is true, she tried to make a calculation, 
but she discovered things so exorbitant that she could 
not believe them possible. Then she recommended, 
soon got confused, gave it all up, and thought no more 
about it. 

The house was very dreary now. Tradesmen were 
seen leaving it with angry faces. Handkerchiefs were 
lying about on the stoves, and little Berthe, to the great 
scandal of Madame Homais, wore stockings with holes 
in them. If Charles timidly ventured a remark, she 
answered roughly that it wasn’t her fault. 

What was the meaning of all these fits of temper? 
He explained everything through her old nervous illness, 
and reproaching himself with having taken her infirmities 
for faults, accused himself of egotism, and longed to go 
and take her in his arms. 

“Ah, no!” he said to himself; “I should worry her.” 

And he did not stir. 

After dinner he walked about alone in the garden; 
he took little Berthe on his knees, and unfolding his 
medical journal, tried to teach her to read. But the 
child, who never had any lessons, soon looked up with 
large, sad eyes and began to cry. Then he comforted 
her; went to fetch water in her can to make rivers on 
the sand path, or broke off branches from the privet 
hedges to plant trees in the beds. This did not spoil 
the garden much, all choked now with long weeds. They 
owed Lestiboudois for so many days. Then the child 
grew cold and asked for her mother. 

[ 365 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Call the servant,” said Charles. “You know, dearie, 
that mamma does not like to be disturbed.” 

Autumn was setting in, and the leaves were already 
falling, as they did two years ago when she was ill. Where 
would it all end? And he walked up and down, his 
hands behind his back. 

Madame was in her room, which no one entered. 
She stayed there all day long, torpid, half dressed, and 
from time to time burning Turkish pastilles which she 
had bought at Rouen in an Algerian’s shop. In order 
not to have at night this sleeping man stretched at her 
side, by dint of manoeuvring, she at last succeeded in 
banishing him to the second floor, while she read till 
morning extravagant books, full of pictures of orgies 
and thrilling situations. Often, seized with fear, she 
cried out, and Charles hurried to her. 

“Oh, go away!” she would say. 

Or at other times, consumed more ardently than ever 
by that inner flame to which adultery added fuel, pant- 
ing, tremulous, all desire, she threw open her window, 
breathed in the cold air, shook loose in the wind her 
masses of hair, too heavy, and, gazing upon the stars, 
longed for some princely love. She thought of him, 
of Leon. She would then have given anything for a 
single one of those meetings that surfeited her. 

These were her gala days. She wanted them to be 
sumptuous, and when he alone could not pay the ex- 
penses, she made up the deficit liberally, which hap- 
pened pretty well every time. He tried to make her 
understand that they would be quite as comfortable 
somewhere else, in a smaller hotel, but she always found 
some objection. 


[366] 


MADAME BOVARY 


One day she drew six small silver-gilt spoons from her 
bag (they were old Rouault’s wedding present), begging 
him to pawn them at once for her, and Leon obeyed, 
though the proceeding annoyed him. He was afraid 
of compromising himself. 

Then, on reflection, he began to think his mistress’s 
ways were growing odd, and that they were perhaps 
not wrong in wishing to separate him from her. 

In fact someone had sent his mother a long anonymous 
letter to warn her that he was “ruining himself with a 
married woman,” and the good lady at once conjuring 
up the eternal bugbear of families, the vague pernicious 
creature, the siren, the monster, who dwells fantastically 
in depths of love, wrote to Lawyer Dubocage, his em- 
ployer, who behaved perfectly in the affair. He kept 
him for three quarters of an hour trying to open his eyes, 
to warn him of the abyss into which he was falling. 
Such an intrigue would damage him later on, when he 
set up for himself. He implored him to break with her, 
and, if he would not make this sacrifice in his own in- 
terest, to do it at least for his, Dubocage’s sake. 

At last Leon swore he would not see Emma again, 
and he reproached himself with not having kept his 
word, considering all the worry and lectures this woman 
might still draw down upon him, without reckoning the 
jokes made by his companions as they sat round the 
stove in the morning. Besides, he was soon to be head 
clerk; it was time to settle down. So he gave up his 
flute, exalted sentiments, and poetry; for every bourgeois 
in the flush of his youth, were it but for a day, a moment, 
has believed himself capable of immense passions, of 
Ioftv enterprises. The most mediocre libertine has 
[ 367 ] 


MADAME BOVA R Y 


dreamed of sultanas; every notary bears within him the 
debris of a poet. 

He was bored now when Emma suddenly began to sob 
on his breast, and his heart, like the people who can only 
stand a certain amount of music, dozed to the sound 
of a love whose delicacies he no longer noted. 

They knew one another too well for any of those sur- 
prises of possession that increase its joys a hundred-fold. 
She was as sick of him as he was weary of her. Emma 
found again in adultery all the platitudes of marriage. 

But how to get rid of him? Then, though she might 
feel humiliated at the baseness of such enjoyment, she 
clung to it from habit or from corruption, and each day 
she hungered after them the more, exhausting all felicity 
in wishing for too much of it. She accused Leon of her 
baffled hopes, as if he had betrayed her; and she even 
longed for some catastrophe that would bring about 
their separation, since she had not the courage to make 
up her mind to it herself. 

She none the less went on writing him love letters, 
in virtue of the notion that a woman must write to her 
lover. 

But whilst she wrote it was another man she saw, 
a phantom fashioned out of her most ardent memories, 
of her finest reading, her strongest lusts, and at last he 
became so real, so tangible, that she palpitated wonder- 
ing, without, however, the power to imagine him clearly, 
so lost was he, like a god, beneath the abundance of his 
attributes. He dwelt in that azure land where silk 
ladders hang from balconies under the breath of flowers, 
in the light of the moon. She felt him near her; he was 
coming, and would carry her right away in a kiss. 

CS68] 


MADAME BOVARY 

Then she fell back exhausted, for these transports of 
vague love wearied her more than great debauchery. 

She now felt constant ache all over her. Often she 
even received summonses, stamped paper that she barely 
looked at. She would have liked not to be alive, or to 
be always asleep. 

On Mid-Lent she did not return to Yonville, but in the 
evening went to a masked ball. She wore velvet breeches, 
red stockings, a club wig, and three-cornered hat cocked 
on one side. She danced all night to the wild tones of the 
trombones; people gathered round her, and in the morn- 
ing she found herself on the steps of the theatre together 
with five or six masks, debardeuses and sailors, Leon’s 
comrades, who were talking about having supper. 

The neighbouring cafes were full. They caught sight 
of one on the harbour, a very indifferent restaurant, whose 
proprietor showed them to a little room on the fourth 
floor. 

The men were whispering in a corner, no doubt con- 
sulting about expenses. There were a clerk, two medical 
students, and a shopman — what company for her! 
As to the women, Emma soon perceived from the tone 
of their voices that they must almost belong to the 
lowest class. Then she was frightened, pushed back 
her chair, and cast down her eyes. 

The others began to eat; she ate nothing. Her head 
was on fire, her eyes smarted, and her skin was ice-cold. 
In her head she seemed to feel the floor of the ball-room 
rebounding again beneath the rhythmical pulsation of 
the thousands of dancing feet. And now the smell 
of the punch, the smoke of the cigars, made her giddy. 
She fainted, and they carried her to the window. 

[ 369 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Day was breaking, and a great stain of purple colour 
broadened out in the pale horizon over the St. Catherine 
hills. The livid river was shivering in the wind; there was 
no one on the bridges; the street lamps were going out. 

She revived, and began thinking of Berthe asleep 
yonder in the servant’s room. Then a cart filled with 
long strips of iron passed by, and made a deafening 
metallic vibration against the walls of the houses. 

She slipped away suddenly, threw off her costume, 
told Leon she must get back, and at last was alone at 
the Hotel de Boulogne. Everything, even herself, was 
now unbearable to her. She wished that, taking ^wing 
like a bird, she could fly somewhere, far away to regions 
of purity, and there grow young again. 

She went out, crossed the Boulevard, the Place Cau- 
choise, and the Faubourg, as far as an open street that 
overlooked some gardens. She walked rapidly, the 
fresh air calming her; and, little by little, the faces of 
the crowd, the masks, the quadrilles, the lights, the sup- 
per, those women, all, disappeared like mists fading away. 
Then, reaching the “Croix- Rouge,” she threw herself on 
the bed in her little room on the second floor, where 
there were pictures of the “Tour de Nesle.” At four 
o’clock Hivert awoke her. 

When she got home, Felicite showed her behind the 
clock a grey paper. She read — 

“In virtue of the seizure in execution of a judgment.” 
What judgment? As a matter of fact, the evening 
before another paper had been brought that she had not 
yet seen, and she was stunned by these words — 

“ By order of the king, law, and justice, to Madame 
Bovary.” Then, skipping several lines, she read, “Within 
[370] 


MADAME BOVARY 


twenty-four hours, without fail ” But what? “To 

pay the sum of eight thousand francs.” And there was 
even at the bottom, “She will be constrained thereto 
by every form of law, and notably by a writ of distraint 
on her furniture and effects.” 

What was to be done? In twenty-four hours, — to- 
morrow. Lheureux, she thought, wanted to frighten 
her again; for she saw through all his devices, the object 
of his kindnesses. What reassured her was the very 
magnitude of the sum. 

However, by dint of buying and not paying, of borrow- 
ing, signing bills, and renewing these bills that grew 
at each new falling-in, she had ended by preparing a 
capital for Monsieur Lheureux which he was impatiently 
awaiting for his speculations. 

She presented herself at his place with an offhand air. 

“You know what has happened to me? No doubt 
it’s a joke!” 

“No.” 

“How so?” 

He turned away slowly, and, folding his arms, said 
to her — 

“My good lady, did you think I should go on to all 
eternity being your purveyor and banker, for the love 
of God? Now be just. I must get back what I’ve 
laid out. Now be just.” 

She cried out against the debt. 

“Ah! so much the worse. The court has admitted 
it. There’s a judgment. It’s been notified to you. 
Besides, it isn’t my fault. It’s Vincart’s.” 

“Could you not ?” 

“Oh, nothing whatever.” 

[ 371 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“But still, now talk it over.” 

And she began beating about the bush; she had known 
nothing about it; it was a surprise. 

“Whose fault is that?” said Lheureux, bowing ironi- 
cally. “While I’m slaving like a nigger, you go galli- 
vanting about.” 

“Ah! no lecturing.” 

“It never does any harm,” he replied. 

She turned coward; she implored him; she even 
pressed her pretty white and slender hand against the 
shopkeeper’s knee. 

“There, that’ll do! Anyone’d think you wanted to 
seduce me!” 

“You are a wretch!” she cried. 

“Oh, oh! go it! go it!” 

“I will show you up. I shall tell my husband.” 

“All right! I too, I’ll show your husband something.” 

And Lheureux drew from his strong box the receipt 
for eighteen hundred francs that she had given him 
when Vinsart had discounted the bills. 

“Do you think,” he added, “that he’ll not under- 
stand your little theft, the poor dear man?” 

She collapsed, more overcome than if felled by the 
blow of a pole-axe. He was walking up and down from 
the window to the bureau, repeating all the while — 

“Ah! I’ll show him! I’ll show him!” Then he 
approached her, and in a soft voice said — 

“It isn’t pleasant, I know; but, after all, no bones are 
broken, and, since that is the only way that is left for 
you paying back my money ” 

“But where am I to get any?” said Emma, wringing 
her hands. 


[372] 


MADAME BOVARY 

“Bah! when one has friends like you!” 

And he looked at her in so keen, so terrible a fashion, 
that she shuddered to her very heart. 

“I promise you,” she said, “to sign ” 

“I’ve enough of your signatures.” 

“I will sell something.” 

“Get along!” he said, shrugging his shoulders; “you’ve 
not got anything.” 

And he called through the peep-hole that looked 
down into the shop — 

“Annette, don’t forget the three coupons of No. 14.” 

The servant appeared. Emma understood, and asked 
how much money would be wanted to put jt stop to the 
proceedings. 

“ It is"too late.” 

“ But if I brought you several thousand francs — a 
quarter of the sum — a third — perhaps the whole?” 

“No; it’s no use!” 

And he pushed her gently towards the staircase. 

“I implore you Monsieur Lheureux, just a few days 
more!” She was sobbing. 

“There! tears now!” 

“You are driving me to despair!” 

“What do I care?” said he, shutting the door. 


[373] 


VII 


S HE was stoical the next day when Maitre Hareng, 
the bailiff, with two assistants, presented himself 
at her house to draw up the inventory for the distraint. 

They began with Bovary’s consulting-room, and did 
not write down the phrenological head, which was con- 
sidered an “instrument of his profession”; but in the 
kitchen they counted the plates, the saucepans, the 
chairs, the candlesticks, and in the bedroom all the 
nick-nacks on the whatnot. They examined her dresses, 
the linen, the dressing-room; and her whole existence, 
to its most intimate details, was, like a corpse on whom 
a post-mortem is made, outspread before the eyes of 
these three men. 

Maitre Hareng, buttoned up in his thin black coat, 
wearing a white choker and very tight foot-straps, 
repeated from time to time — “Allow me, madame. 
You allow me?” Often he uttered exclamations. 
“Charming! very pretty.” Then he began writing 
again, dipping his pen into the horn inkstand in his 
left hand. 

When they had done with the rooms they went up to 
the attic. She kept a desk there in which Rodolphe’s 
letters were locked. It had to be opened. 

“Ah! a correspondence,” said Maitre Hareng, with 
a discreet smile. “But allow me, for I must make sure 
the box contains nothing else.” And he tipped up the 
[ 374 3 


MADAME BOVARY 


papers lightly, as if to shake out napoleons. Then she 
grew angered to see this coarse hand, with fingers red 
and pulpy like slugs, touching these pages against which 
her heart had beaten. 

They went at last. Felicite came back. Emma had 
sent her out to watch for Bovary in order to keep him 
off, and they hurriedly installed the man in possession 
under the roof, where he swore he would remain. 

During the evening Charles seemed to her careworn. 
Emma watched him with a look of anguish, fancying 
she saw an accusation in every line of his face. Then, 
when her eyes wandered over the chimney-piece orna- 
mented with Chinese screens, over the large curtains, 
the arm-chairs, all those things, in a word, that had 
softened the bitterness of her life, remorse seized her 
or rather an immense regret, that, far from crushing, 
irritated her passion. Charles placidly poked the fire, 
both his feet on the fire-dogs. [] 

Once the man, no doubt bored in his hiding-place, 
made a slight noise. 

“Is anyone walking upstairs?” said Charles. 

“No,” she replied; “it is a window that has been 
left open, and is rattling in the wind.” 

The next day, Sunday, she went to Rouen to call on 
all the brokers whose names she knew. They were at 
their country-places or on journeys. She was not dis- 
couraged; and those* whom she did manage to see she 
asked for money, declaring she must have some, and that 
she would pay it back. Some laughed in her face; 
all refused. 

At two o’clock she hurried to Leon, and knocked at 
the door. No one answered. At length he appeared. 
C 375 H 


MADAME BOVARY 


“What brings you here?” 

“Do I disturb you?” 

“No; but ” And he admitted that his landlord 

didn’t like his having “women” there. 

“I must speak to you,” she went on. 

Then he took down the key, but she stopped him. 

“No, no! Down there, in our home!” 

And then went to their room at the Hotel de Boulogne. 

On arriving she drank off a large glass of water. She 
was very pale. She said to him — 

“Leon, you will do me a service?” 

And, shaking him by both hands that she grasped 
tightly, she added — 

“Listen, I want eight thousand francs.” 

“But you are mad!” 

“Not yet.” 

And thereupon, telling him the story of the distraint, 
she explained her distress to him; for Charles knew 
nothing of it; her mother-in-law detested her; old 
Rouault could do nothing; but he, Leon, he would set 
about finding this indispensable sum. 

“How on earth can I?” 

“What a coward you are!” she cried. 

Then he said stupidly, “You are exaggerating the 
difficulty. Perhaps, with a thousand crowns or so the 
fellow could be stopped.” 

All the greater reason to try and do something; it 
was impossible that they could not find three thousand 
francs. Besides, Leon could be security instead of her. 

“Go, try, try! I will love you so!” 

He went out, and came back at the end of an hour, 
saying, with solemn face — 

[376] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“I have been to three people with no success.” 

Then they remained sitting face to face at the two 
chimney corners, motionless, in silence. Emma shrugged 
her shoulders as she stamped her feet. He heard her 
murmuring — 

“If I were in your place / should soon get some.” 

“But where?” 

“At your office.” And she looked at him. 

An infernal boldness looked out from her burning 
eyes, and their lids drew close together with a lascivious 
and encouraging look, so that the young man felt himself 
growing weak beneath the mute will of this woman who 
was urging him to a crime. Then he was afraid, and to 
avoid any explanation he smote his forehead, crying — 

“Morel is to come back to-night; he will not refuse 
me, I hope” (this was one of his friends, the son of a 
very rich merchant) ; “and I will bring it you to-morrow,” 
he added. 

Emma did not seem to welcome this hope with all the 
joy he had expected. Did she suspect the lie? He went 
on, blushing — 

“However, if you don’t see me by three o’clock do not 
wait for me, my darling. I must be off now; forgive 
me! Goodbye!” 

He pressed her hand, but it felt quite lifeless. Emma 
had no strength left for any sentiment. 

Four o’clock struck, and she rose to return to Yonville, 
mechanically obeying the force of old habits. 

The weather was fine. It was one of those March 
days, clear and sharp, when the sun shines in a perfectly 
white sky. The Rouen folk, in Sunday-clothes, were 
walking about with happy looks. She reached the 
C 377 D 


MADAME BOVARY 


Place du Parvis. People were coming out after vespers; 
the crowd flowed out through the three doors like a stream 
through the three arches of a bridge, and in the middle 
one, more motionless than a rock, stood the beadle. 

Then she remembered the day when, all anxious and 
full of hope, she had entered beneath this large nave, 
that had opened out before her, less profound than her 
love; and she walked on weeping beneath her veil, 
giddy, staggering, almost fainting. 

“Take care!” cried a voice issuing from the gate of a 
courtyard that was thrown open. 

She stopped to let pass a black horse, pawing the 
ground between the shafts of a tilbury, driven by a 
gentleman in sable furs. Who was it? She knew him. 
The carriage darted by and disappeared. 

Why, it was he — the Viscount. She turned away; 
the street was empty. She was so overwhelmed, so 
sad, that she had to lean against a wall to keep herself 
from falling. 

Then she thought she had been mistaken. Anyhow, 
she did not know. All within her and around her was 
abandoning her. She felt lost, sinking at random into 
indefinable abysses, and it was almost with joy that, on 
reaching the “Croix-Rouge,” she saw the good Homais, 
who was watching a large box full of pharmaceutical 
stores being hoisted on to the “ Hirondelle.” In his 
hand he held tied in a silk handkerchief six cbeminots 
for his wife. 

Madame Homais was very fond of these small, heavy 
turban-shaped loaves, that are eaten in Lent with salt 
butter; a last vestige of Gothic food that goes back, per- 
haps, to the time of the Crusades, and with which the 
[ 378 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


robust Normans gorged themselves of yore, fancying 
they saw on the table, in the light of the yellow torches, 
between tankards of hippocras and huge boars’ heads, 
the heads of Saracens to be devoured. The druggist’s 
wife crunched them up as they had done — heroically, 
despite her wretched teeth. And so whenever Homais 
journeyed to town, he never failed to bring her home 
some that he bought at the great baker’s in the Rue 
Massacre. 

“Charmed to see you,” he said, offering Emma a 
hand to help her into the “Hirondelle.” Then he hung 
up his cheminots to the cords of the netting, and remained 
bareheaded in an attitude pensive and Napoleonic. 

But when the blind man appeared as usual at the foot 
of the hill he exclaimed — 

“I can’t understand why the authorities tolerate such 
culpable industries. Such unfortunates should be locked 
up and forced to work. Progress, my word! creeps at 
a snail’s pace. We are floundering about in mere bar- 
barism.” 

The blind man held out his hat, that flapped about 
at the door, as if it were a bag in the lining that had come 
unnailed. 

“This,” said the chemist, “is a scrofulous affection.” 

And though he knew the poor devil, he pretended to 
see him for the first time, murmured something about 
“cornea,” “opaque cornea,” “sclerotic,” “facies,” then 
asked him in a paternal tone — 

“My friend, have you long had this terrible infirmity? 
Instead of getting drunk at the public, you’d do better 
to die yourself.” 

N He advised him to take good wine, good beer, and good 

[ 379 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


joints. The blind man went on with his song; he 
seemed, moreover, almost idiotic. At last Monsieur 
Homais opened his purse — 

“Now there’s a sou; give me back two lairds, and 
don’t forget my advice: you’ll be the better for it.” 

Hivert openly cast some doubt on the efficacy of it. 
But the druggist said that he would cure himself with an 
antiphlogistic pommade of his own composition, and 
he gave his address: “Monsieur Homais, near the market, 
pretty well known.” 

“Now,” said Hivert, “for all this trouble you’ll give 
us your performance.” 

The blind man sank down on his haunches, with his 
head thrown back, whilst he rolled his greenish eyes, 
lolled out his tongue, and rubbed his stomach with both 
hands, as he uttered a kind of hollow yell like a famished 
dog. Emma, filled with disgust, threw him over her 
shoulder a five-franc piece. It was all her fortune. 
It seemed to her very fine thus to throw it away. 

The coach had gone on again when suddenly Monsieur 
Homais leant out through the window, crying — 

“No farinaceous or milk food, wear wool next the 
skin, and expose the diseased parts to the smoke of 
juniper berries.” 

The sight of the well-known objects that defiled before 
her eyes gradually diverted Emma from her present 
trouble. An intolerable fatigue overwhelmed her, and she 
reached her home stupefied, discouraged, almost asleep. 

“Come what may come!” she said to herself. “And 
then, who knows? Why, at any moment could not some 
extraordinary event occur? Lheureux even might die!” 

At nine o’clock in the morning she was awakened 
[380] 


MADAME BOVARY 


by the sound of voices in the Place. There was a crowd 
round the market reading a large bill fixed to one of the 
posts, and she saw Justin, who was climbing on to a 
! stone and tearing down the bill. But at this moment 
the rural guard seized him by the collar. Monsieur 
Homais came out of his shop, and Mere Lefrangois, in 
the midst of the crowd, seemed to be perorating. 

“Madame! madame! ,, cried Felicite, running in, 
“it's abominable !” 

And the poor girl, deeply moved, handed her a yellow 
paper that she had just torn off the door. Emma read 
with a glance that all her furniture was for sale. 

Then they looked at one another silently. The servant 
and mistress had no secret one from the other. At 
last Felicite sighed — 

“If I were you, madame, I should go to Monsieur 
GuiIIaumin. ,, 

“Do you think ” 

And this question meant to say — 

“You who know the house through the servant, has 
the master spoken sometimes of me?” 

“Yes, you’d do well to go there.” 

She dressed, put on her black gown, and her hood with 
jet beads, and that she might not be seen (there was 
still a crowd on the Place), she took the path by the 
river, outside the village. 

She reached the notary’s gate quite breathless. The 
sky was sombre, and a little snow was falling. At the 
sound of the bell, Theodore in a red waistcoat appeared 
on the steps; he came to open the door almost familiarly, 
as to an acquaintance, and showed her into the dining- 
room. 


C 381 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


A large porcelain stove crackled beneath a cactus that 
filled up the niche in the wall, and in black wood frames 
against the oak-stained paper hung Steuben’s “Esme- 
ralda” and Schopin’s “Potiphar.” The ready-laid table, 
the two silver chafing-dishes, the crystal door-knobs, 
the parquet and the furniture, all shone with a scru- 
pulous, English cleanliness; the windows were orna- 
mented at each corner with stained glass. 

“Now this,” thought Emma, “is the dining-room 
I ought to have.” 

The notary came in pressing his palm-leaf dressing- 
gown to his breast with his left arm, while with the 
other hand he raised and quickly put on again his brown 
velvet cap, pretentiously cocked on the right side, whence 
looked out the ends of three fair curls drawn from the 
back of the head, following the line of his bald skull. 

After he had offered her a seat he sat down to break- 
fast, apologising profusely for his rudeness. 

“I have come,” she said, “to beg you, sir ” 

“What, madame? I am listening.” 

And she began explaining her position to him. Mon- 
sieur Guillaumin knew it, being secretly associated with 
the Iinendraper, from whom he always got capital for the 
loans on mortgages that he was asked to make. 

So he knew (and better than she herself) the long story 
of the bills, small at first, bearing different names as 
endorsers, made out at long dates, and constantly re- 
newed up to the day, when, gathering together all the 
protested bills, the shopkeeper had bidden his friend 
Vin^art take in his own name all the necessary proceed- 
ings, not wishing to pass for a tiger with his fellow- 
citizens. 


[382] 


MADAME BOVARY 


She mingled her story with recriminations against 
i Lheureux, to which the notary replied from time to time 
with some insignificant word. Eating his cutlet and 
drinking his tea, he buried his chin in his sky-blue cravat, 
into which were thrust two diamond pins, held together 
by a small gold chain; and he smiled a singular smile, 
in a sugary, ambiguous fashion. But noticing that her 
feet were damp, he said — 

“Do get closer to the stove; put your feet up against 
the porcelain.” 

She was afraid of dirtying it. The notary replied 
in a gallant tone — 

“Beautiful things spoil nothing.” 

Then she tried to move him, and, growing moved 
herself, she began telling him about the poorness of her 
home, her worries, her wants. He could understand 
that; an elegant woman! and, without leaving off eating, 
he had turned completely round towards her, so that his 
knee brushed against her boot, whose sole curled round 
as it smoked against the stove. 

But when she asked for a thousand ecus, he closed 
his lips, and declared he was very sorry he had not had 
the management of her fortune before, for there were 
hundreds of ways very convenient, even for a lady, 
of turning her money to account. They might, either 
in the turf-peats of Grumesnil or building-ground at 
Havre, almost without risk, have ventured on some 
excellent speculations; and he let her consume herself 
with rage at the thought of the fabulous sums that she 
would certainly have made. 

“ How was it,” he went on, “ that you didn’t come to me? ” 
“I hardly know,” she said. 

[ 383 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Why, hey? Did I frighten you so much? It is I 
on the contrary, who ought to complain. We hardly 
know one another; yet I am very devoted to you. You 
do not doubt that, I hope?” 

He held out his hand, took hers, covered it with a 
greedy kiss, then held it on his knee; and he played 
delicately with her fingers whilst he murmured a thousand 
blandishments. His insipid voice murmured like a 
running brook; a light shone in his eyes through the 
glimmering of his spectacles, and his hand was advanc- 
ing up Emma’s sleeve to press her arm. She felt against 
her cheek his panting breath. This man oppressed her 
horribly. 

She sprang up and said to him — 

“Sir, I am waiting.” 

“For what?” said the notary, who suddenly became 
very pale. 

“This money.” 

“But ” Then, yielding to the outburst of too 

powerful a desire, “Well, yes!” 

He dragged himself towards her on his knees, regard- 
less of his dressing-gown. 

“ For pity’s sake, stay. I love you ! ” 

He seized her by her waist. Madame Bovary’s face 
flushed purple. She recoiled with a terrible look, 
crying — 

“You are taking a shameless advantage of my distress, 
sir! I am to be pitied — not to be sold.” 

And she went out. 

The notary remained quite stupefied, his eyes fixed 
on his fine embroidered slippers. They were a love 
gift, and the sight of them at last consoled him. Be- 

[384] 


MADAME BOVARY 

sides, he reflected that such an adventure might have 
carried him too far. 

“What a wretch! what a scoundrel! what an infamy!” 
she said to herself, as she fled with nervous steps beneath 
the aspens of the path. The disappointment of her 
failure increased the indignation of her outraged modesty; 
it seemed to her that Providence pursued her implacably, 
and, strengthening herself in her pride, she had never 
felt so much esteem for herself nor so much contempt 
for others. A spirit of warfare transformed her. She 
would have liked to strike all men, to spit in their faces, 
to crush them, and she walked rapidly straight on, pale, 
quivering, maddened, searching the empty horizon with 
tear-dimmed eyes, and as it were rejoicing in the hate 
that was choking her. 

When she saw her house a numbness came over her. 
She could not go on; and yet she must. Besides, whither 
could she flee? 

Felicite was waiting for her at the door. “Well?” 

“No!” said Emma. 

And for a quarter of an hour the two of them went 
over the various persons in Yonville who might perhaps 
be inclined to help her. But each time that Felicite 
named someone Emma replied — 

“Impossible! they will not!” 

“And the master’ll soon be in.” 

“I know that well enough. Leave me alone.” 

She had tried everything; there was nothing more to 
be done now; and when Charles came in she would 
have to say to him — 

“Go away! This carpet on which you are walking 
is no longer ours. In your own house you do not possess 
[ 385 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


a chair, a pin, a straw, and it is I, poor man, who have 
ruined you.” 

Then there would be a great sob; next he would weep 
abundantly, and at last, the surprise past, he would 
forgive her. 

“Yes,” she murmured, grinding her teeth, “he will 
forgive me, he who would give me a million if I would 
forgive him for having known me! Never! never!” 

This thought of Bovary’s superiority to her exasper- 
ated her. Then, whether she confessed or did not 
confess, presently, immediately, to-morrow, he would 
know the catastrophe all the same; so she must wait 
for this horrible scene, and bear the weight of his magna- 
nimity. The desire to return to Lheureux’s seized 
her — what would be the use? To write to her father — 
it was too late; and perhaps she began to repent now 
that she had not yielded to that other, when she heard 
the trot of a horse in the alley. It was he; he was 
opening the gate; he was whiter than the plaster wall. 
Rushing to the stairs, she ran out quickly to the square; 
and the wife of the mayor, who was talking to Lesti- 
boudois in front of the church, saw her go in to the tax- 
collector’s. 

She hurried off to tell Madame Caron, and the two 
ladies went up to the attic, and, hidden by some linen 
spread across props, stationed themselves comfortably 
for overlooking the whole of Binet’s room. 

He was alone in his garret, busy imitating in wood one 
of those indescribable bits of ivory, composed of cres- 
cents, of spheres hollowed out one within the other, 
the whole as straight as an obelisk, and of no use what- 
ever; and he was beginning on the last piece — he was 
[ 386 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


nearing his goal. In the twilight of the workshop the 
white dust was flying from his tools like a shower of 
sparks under the hoofs of a galloping horse; the two 
wheels were turning, droning; Binet smiled, his chin low- 
ered, his nostrils distended, and, in a word, seemed 
lost in one of those complete happinesses that, no doubt, 
belong only to commonplace occupations, which amuse 
the mind with facile difficulties, and satisfy by a reali- 
sation of that beyond which such minds have not a 
dream. 

44 Ah! there she is!” exclaimed Madame Tuvache. 

But it was impossible because of the lathe to hear 
what she was saying. 

At last these ladies thought they made out the word 
“francs,” and Madame Tuvache whispered in a low 
voice — 

“She is begging him to give her time for paying her 
taxes.” 

“Apparently!” replied the other. 

They saw her walking up and down, examining the 
napkin-rings, the candlesticks, the banister rails against 
the walls, while Binet stroked his beard with satisfaction. 

“Do you think she wants to order something of him?” 
said Madame Tuvache. 

“Why, he doesn’t sell anything,” objected her neigh- 
bour. 

The tax-collector seemed to be listening with wide- 
open eyes, as if he did not understand. She went on 
in a tender, suppliant manner. She came nearer to 
him, her breast heaving; they no longer spoke. 

“Is she making him advances?” said Madame 
Tuvache. 


[ 387 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 

Binet was scarlet to his very ears. She took hold of 
his hands. 

“Oh, it’s too much!” 

And no doubt she was suggesting something abomi- 
nable to him; for the tax-collector — yet he was brave, 
had fought at Bautzen and at Lutzen, had been through 
the French campaign, and had even been recommended 
for the cross — suddenly, as at the sight of a serpent, 
recoiled as far as he could from her, crying — 

“Madame! what do you mean?” 

“Women like that ought to be whipped,” said Madame 
Tuvache. 

“But where is she?” continued Madame Caron, 
for she had disappeared whilst they spoke; then catch- 
ing sight of her going up the Grande Rue, and turning 
to the right as if making for the cemetery, they were 
lost in conjectures. 

“Nurse Rolet,” she said on reaching the nurse’s, 
“I am choking; unlace me!” She fell on the bed sob- 
bing. Nurse Rolet covered her with a petticoat and 
remained standing by her side. Then, as she did not 
answer, the good woman withdrew, took her wheel and 
began spinning flax. 

“Oh, leave off!” she murmured, fancying she heard 
Binet’s lathe. 

“What’s bothering her?” said the nurse to herself. 
“Why has she come here?” 

She had rushed thither, impelled by a kind of horror 
that drove her from her home. 

Lying on her back, motionless, and with staring eyes, 
she saw things but vaguely, although she tried to with 
[ 388 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


idiotic persistence. She looked at the scales on the 
walls, two brands smoking end to end, and a long spider 
crawling over her head in a rent in the beam. At last 
she began to collect her thoughts. She remembered — 

one day — Leon Oh ! how long ago that was — 

the sun was shining on the river, and the clematis 
were perfuming the air. Then, carried away as by 
a rushing torrent, she soon began to recall the day 
before. 

“What time is it?” she asked. 

Mere Rolet went out, raised the fingers of her right 
hand to that side of the sky that was brightest, and 
came back slowly, saying — 

“Nearly three.” 

“Ah! thanks, thanks!” 

For he would come; he would have found some money. 
But he would, perhaps, go down yonder, not guessing 
she was here, and she told the nurse to run to her house 
to fetch him. 

“Be quick!” 

“But, my dear lady, I’m going, Pm going!” 

She wondered now that she had not thought of him 
from the first. Yesterday he had given his word; he 
would not break it. And she already saw herself 
at Lheureux’s spreading out her three bank-notes 
on his bureau. Then she would have to invent 
some story to explain matters to Bovary. What 
| should it be? 

The nurse, however, was a long while gone. But, 
as there was no clock in the cot, Emma feared she was 
perhaps exaggerating the length of time. She began 
walking round the garden, step by step; she went into 

[389] 




MADAME BOVARY 


the path by the hedge, and returned quickly, hoping 
that the woman would have come back by another road. 
At last, weary of waiting, assailed by fears that she 
thrust from her, no longer conscious whether she had 
been here a century or a moment, she sat down in a 
corner, closed her eyes, and stopped her ears. The gate 
grated; she sprang up. Before she had spoken Mere 
Rolet said to her — 

“There is no one at your house!” 

“What?” 

“Oh, no one! And the doctor is crying. He is calling 
for you; they’re looking for you.” 

Emma answered nothing. She gasped as she turned 
her eyes about her, while the peasant woman, frightened 
at her face, drew back instinctively, thinking her mad. 
Suddenly she struck her brow and uttered a cry; for the 
thought of Rodolphe, like a flash of lightning in a dark 
night, had passed into her soul. He was so good, so 
delicate, so generous! And besides, should he hesitate 
to do her this service, she would know well enough how 
to constrain him to it by re-waking, in a single moment, 
their lost love. So she set out towards La Huchette, 
not seeing that she was hastening to offer herself to that 
which but a while ago had so angered her, not in the 
least conscious of her prostitution. 


[390] 


VIII 


CHE asked herself as she walked along, “What am 
^ I going to say? How shall I begin?” And as she 
went on she recognised the thickets, the trees, the sea- 
rushes on the hill, the chateau yonder. All the sensations 
of her first tenderness came back to her, and her poor 
aching heart opened out amorously. A warm wind blew 
in her face; the melting snow fell drop by drop from the 
buds to the grass. 

She entered, as she used to, through the small park- 
gate. She reached the avenue bordered by a double 
row of dense lime-trees. They were swaying their long 
whispering branches to and fro. The dogs in their 
kennels all barked, and the noise of their voices resounded, 
but brought out no one. 

She went up the large straight staircase with wooden 
balusters that led to the corridor paved with dusty flags, 
into which several doors in a row opened, as in a monas- 
tery or an inn. His was at the top, right at the end, 
on the left. When she placed her fingers on the lock her 
strength suddenly deserted her. She was afraid, almost 
wished he would not be there, though this was her only 
hope, her last chance of salvation. She collected her 
thoughts for one moment, and, strengthening herself 
by the feeling of present necessity, went in. 

He was in front of the fire, both his feet on the mantel- 
piece, smoking a pipe. 


C 39 ' ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“What! it is you!” he said, getting up hurriedly. 

“Yes, it is I, Rodolphe. I should like to ask your 
advice.” And, despite all her efforts, it was impossible 
for her to open her lips. 

“You have not changed; you are charming as ever!” 

“Oh,” she replied bitterly, “they are poor charms 
since you disdained them.” 

Then he began a long explanation of his conduct, 
excusing himself in vague terms, in default of being able 
to invent better. 

She yielded to his words, still more to his voice and 
the sight of him, so that she pretended to believe, or 
perhaps believed, in the pretext he gave for their rupture; 
this was a secret on which depended the honour, the 
very life of a third person. 

“No matter!” she said, looking at him sadly. “I 
have suffered much.” 

He replied philosophically — 

“Such is life!” 

“Has life,” Emma went on, “been good to you at 
least, since our separation?” 

“Oh, neither good nor bad.” 

“Perhaps it would have been better never to have 
parted.” 

“Yes, perhaps.” 

“You think so?” she said, drawing nearer, and she 
sighed. “Oh, Rodolphe! if you but knew! I loved 
you so!” 

It was then that she took his hand, and they remained 
some time, their fingers intertwined, like that first day at 
the Show. With a gesture of pride he struggled against this 
emotion. But sinking upon his breast she said to him — 

[ 392 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“How did you think I could live without you? One 
cannot lose the habit of happiness. I was desolate. 
I thought I should die. I will tell you about all that and 
you will see. And you — you fled from me!” 

For, all the three years, he had carefully avoided her 
in consequence of that natural cowardice that character- 
ises the stronger sex. Emma went on with dainty 
little nods, more coaxing than an amorous kitten — 

“You love others, confess it! Oh, I understand them, 
dear! I excuse them. You probably seduced them as 
you seduced me. You are indeed a man; you have 
everything to make one love you. But we’II begin again, 
won’t we? We will love one another. See! I am laugh- 
ing; I am happy! Oh, speak!” 

And she was charming to see, with her eyes, in which 
trembled a tear, like the rain of a storm in a blue corolla. 

He had drawn her upon his knees, and with the back 
of his hand was caressing her smooth hair, where in the 
twilight was mirrored like a golden arrow one last ray 
of the sun. She bent down her brow; at last he kissed 
her on the eyelids quite gently with the tips of his lips. 

“Why, you have been crying! What for?” 

She burst into tears. Rodolphe thought this was an 
outburst of her love. As she did not speak, he took 
this silence for a last remnant of resistance, and then 
he cried out — 

“Oh, forgive me! You are the only one who pleases 
me. I was imbecile and cruel. I love you. I will 
love you always. What is it. Tell me!” He was 
kneeling by her. 

“Well, I am ruined, Rodolphe! You must lend me 
three thousand francs.” 

[393] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“But — but ” said he, getting up slowly, while his 

face assumed a grave expression. 

“You know,” she went on quickly, “that my husband 
had placed his whole fortune at a notary’s. He ran 
away. So we borrowed; the patients don’t pay us. 
Moreover, the settling of the estate is not yet done; 
we shall have the money later on. But to-day, for 
want of three thousand francs, we are to be sold up. 
It is to be at once, this very moment, and, counting upon 
your friendship, I have come to you.” 

“Ah!” thought Rodolphe, turning very pale, “that 
was what she came for.” At last he said with a calm 
air — 

“Dear madame, I have not got them.” 

He did not lie. If he had had them, he would, no 
doubt, have given them, although it is generally dis- 
agreeable to do such fine things: a demand for money 
being, of all the winds that blow upon love, the coldest 
and most destructive. 

First she looked at him for some moments. 

“You have not got them!” she repeated several times. 
“You have not got them! I ought to have spared myself 
this last shame. You never loved me. You are no 
better than the others.” 

She was betraying, ruining herself. 

Rodolphe interrupted her, declaring he was “hard 
up” himself. 

“Ah! I pity you,” said Emma. “Yes — very much.” 

And fixing her eyes upon an embossed carabine, that 
shone against its panoply, “But when one is so poor one 
doesn’t have silver on the butt of one’s gun. One doesn’t 
buy a clock inlaid with tortoise shell,” she went on, 

[394] 


MADAME BOVARY 


pointing to a buhl timepiece, “nor silver-gilt whistles 
for one’s whips,” and she touched them, “nor charms for 
one’s watch. Oh, he wants for nothing! even to a liqueur- 
stand in his room! For you love yourself; you live 
well. You have a chateau, farms, woods; you go hunt- 
ing; you travel to Paris. Why, if it were but that,” 
she cried, taking up two studs from the mantlepiece, 
“but the least of these trifles, one can get money for 
them. Oh, I do not want them; keep them!” 

And she threw the two links away from her, their 
gold chain breaking as it struck against the wall. 

“ But I ! I would have given you everything. I would 
have sold all, worked for you with my hands, I would 
have begged on the highroads for a smile, for a look, 
to hear you say ‘Thanks!’ And you sit there quietly 
in your arm-chair, as if you had not made me suffer 
enough already! But for you, and you know it, I might 
have lived happily. What made you do it? Was it a 
bet? Yet you loved me — you said so. And but a 

moment since Ah! it would have been better to 

have driven me away. My hands are hot with your 
kisses, and there is the spot on the carpet where at my 
knees you swore an eternity of love! You made me be- 
lieve you; for two years you held me in the most magni- 
ficent, the sweetest dream! Eh! Our plans for the 
journey, do you remember? Oh, your letter! your 
letter! it tore my heart! And then when I come back 
to him — to him, rich, happy, free — to implore the help 
the first stranger would give, a suppliant, and bringing 
back to him all my tenderness, he repulses me because 
it would cost him three thousand francs!” 

“I haven’t got them,” replied Rodolphe, with that 

C 395 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


perfect calm with which resigned rage covers itself as 
with a shield. 

She went out. The walls trembled, the ceiling was 
crushing her, and she passed back through the long 
alley, stumbling against the heaps of dead leaves scat- 
tered by the wind. At last she reached the ha-ha hedge 
in front of the gate; she broke her nails against the lock 
in her haste to open it. Then a hundred steps farther 
on, breathless, almost falling, she stopped. And now 
turning round, she once more saw the impassive chateau, 
with the park, the gardens, the three courts, and all 
the windows of the facade. 

She remained lost in stupor, and having no more con- 
sciousness of herself than through the beating of her 
arteries, that she seemed to hear bursting forth like 
a deafening music filling all the fields. The earth be- 
neath her feet was more yielding than the sea, and the 
furrows seemed to her immense brown waves breaking 
into foam. Everything in her head, of memories, ideas, 
went off at once like a thousand pieces of fireworks. 
She saw her father, Lheureux’s closet, their room at 
home, another landscape. Madness was coming upon 
her; she grew afraid, and managed to recover herself, 
in a confused way, it is true, for she did not in the least 
/remember the cause of the terrible condition she was in, 
that is to say, the question of money. She suffered 
only in her love, and felt her soul passing from her in 
this memory, as wounded men, dying, feel their life 
ebb from their bleeding wounds. 

Night was falling, crows were flying about. 

Suddenly it seemed to her that fiery spheres were 
exploding in the air like fulminating balls when they 
[ 396 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


strike, and were whirling, whirling, to melt at last upon 
the snow between the branches of the trees. In the 
midst of each of them appeared the face of Rodolphe. 
They multiplied and drew near her, penetrating her. 
It all disappeared; she recognised the lights of the houses 
that shone through the fog. 

Now her situation, like an abyss, rose up before her. 
She was panting as if her heart would burst. Then in 
an ecstasy of heroism, that made her almost joyous, 
she ran down the hill, crossed the cow-plank, the foot- 
path, the alley, the market, and reached the chemist’s 
shop. She was about to enter, but at the sound of the 
bell someone might come, and slipping in by the gate, 
holding her breath, feeling her way along the walls, 
she went as far as the door of the kitchen, where a candle 
stuck on the stove was burning. Justin in his shirt- 
sleeves was carrying out a dish. 

“Ah! they are dining; I will wait.” 

He returned; she tapped at the window. He went 
out. 

“The key! the one for upstairs where he keeps the — ” 
“What?” 

And he looked at her, astonished at the pallor of her 
face, that stood out white against the black background 
of the night. She seemed to him extraordinarily beauti- 
ful and majestic as a phantom. Without understanding 
what she wanted, he had the presentiment of some- 
thing terrible. 

But she went on quickly in a low voice, in a sweet, 
melting voice, “I want it; give it to me.” 

As the partition wall was thin, they could hear the 
clatter of the forks on the plates in the dining-room. 

[397] 


MADAME BOVARY 


She pretended that she wanted to kill the rats that 
kept her from sleeping. 

“I must tell master.” 

“No, stay!” Then with an indifferent air, “Oh, it’s 
not worth while; Til tell him presently. Come, light 
me upstairs.” 

She entered the corridor into which the laboratory door 
opened. Against the wall was a key labelled Capharnaiim. 

“Justin!” called the druggist impatiently. 

“Let us go up.” 

And he followed her. The key turned in the lock, 
and she went straight to the third shelf, so well did her 
memory guide her, seized the blue jar, tore out the 
cork, plunged in her hand, and withdrawing it full of a 
white powder, she began eating it. 

“Stop!” he cried, rushing at her. 

“Hush! someone will come.” 

He was in despair, was calling out. 

“Say nothing, or all the blame will fall on your 
master.” 

Then she went home, suddenly calmed, and with some- 
thing of the serenity of one that had performed a duty. 

When Charles, distracted by the news of the distraint, 
returned home, Emma had just gone out. He cried 
aloud, wept, fainted, but she did not return. Where 
could she be? He sent Felicite to Homais, to Monsieur 
Tuvache, to Lheureux, to the “Lion d’Or,” everywhere, 
and in the intervals of his agony he saw his reputation 
destroyed, their fortune lost, Berthe’s future ruined. 
By what? — Not a word ! He waited till six in the 
evening. At last, unable to bear it any longer, and 

[398] 


MADAME BOVARY 


fancying she had gone to Rouen, he set out along the 
highroad, walked a mile, met no one, again waited, and 
returned home. She had come back. 

4 4 What was the matter? Why? Explain to me.” 

She sat down at her writing-table and wrote a letter, 
which she sealed slowly, adding the date and the hour. 
Then she said in a solemn tone: 

44 You are to read it to-morrow; till then, I pray you, 
do not ask me a single question. No, not one!” 

44 But ” 

44 Oh, leave me!” 

She lay down full length on her bed. A bitter taste 
that she felt in her mouth awakened her. She saw 
Charles, and again closed her eyes. 

She was studying herself curiously, to see if she were 
not suffering. But no! nothing as yet. She heard the 
ticking of the clock, the crackling of the fire, and Charles 
breathing as he stood upright by her bed. 

4 4 Ah! it is but a little thing, death!” she thought. 
44 1 shall fall asleep and all will be over.” 

She drank a mouthful of water and turned to the wall. 
The frightful taste of ink continued. 

44 1 am thirsty; oh! so thirsty,” she sighed. 

44 What is it?” said Charles, who was handing her 
a glass. 

44 It is nothing! Open the window; I am choking.” 

She was seized with a sickness so sudden that she had 
hardly time to draw out her handkerchief from under the 
pillow. 

“Take it away,” she said quickly; “throw it away.” 

He spoke to her; she did not answer. She lay motion- 
less, afraid that the slightest movement might make her 

[399] 


MADAME BOVARY 


vomit. But she felt an icy cold creeping from her feet 
to her heart. 

“Ah! it is beginning,” she murmured. 

“What did you say?” 

She turned her head from side to side with a gentle 
movement full of agony, while constantly opening her 
mouth as if something very heavy were weighing upon 
her tongue. At eight o’clock the vomiting began 
again. 

Charles noticed that at the bottom of the basin there 
was a sort of white sediment sticking to the sides of the 
porcelain. 

“This is extraordinary — very singular,” he repeated. 

But she said in a firm voice, “No, you are mistaken.” 

Then gently, and almost as caressing her, he passed 
his hand over her stomach. She uttered a sharp cry. 
He fell back terror-stricken. 

Then she began to groan, faintly at first. Her shoul- 
ders were shaken by a strong shuddering, and she was 
growing paler than the sheets in which her clenched 
fingers buried themselves. Her unequal pulse was now 
almost imperceptible. 

Drops of sweat oozed from her bluish face, that seemed 
as if rigid in the exhalations of a metallic vapour. Her 
teeth chattered, her dilated eyes looked vaguely about 
her, and to all questions she replied only with a shake of 
the head; she even smiled once or twice. Gradually, 
her moaning grew louder; a hollow shriek burst from 
her; she pretended she was better and that she would get 
up presently. But she was seized with convulsions and 
cried out — 

“Ah! my God! It is horrible!” 

[400] 


MADAME BOVARY 


He threw himself on his knees by her bed. 

“Tell me! what have you eaten? Answer, for heaven's 
sake!" 

And he looked at her with a tenderness in his eyes 
such as she had never seen. 

“Well, there — there!" she said in a faint voice. 
He flew to the writing-table, tore open the seal, and read 
aloud: “Accuse no one." He stopped, passed his hands 
across his eyes, and read it over again. 

“What! help — help!" 

He could only keep repeating the word: “Poisoned! 
poisoned!" Felicite ran to Homais, who proclaimed it 
in the market-place; Madame Lefran^ois heard it at 
the “Lion d’Or"; some got up to go and tell their neigh- 
bours, and all night the village was on the alert. 

Distraught, faltering, reeling, Charles wandered about 
the room. He knocked against the furniture, tore his 
hair, and the chemist had never believed that there 
could be so terrible a sight. 

He went home to write to Monsieur Canivet and to 
Doctor Lariviere. He lost his head, and made more 
than fifteen rough copies. Hippolyte went to Neuf- 
chatel, and Justin so spurred Bo vary’s horse that he left 
it foundered and three parts dead by the hill at Bois- 
Guillaume. 

Charles tried to look up his medical dictionary, but 
could not read it; the lines were dancing. 

“Be calm," said the druggist; “we have only to ad- 
minister a powerful antidote. What is the poison?" 

Charles showed him the letter. It was arsenic. 

“Very well," said Homais, “we must make an analysis." 

For he knew that in cases of poisoning an analysis 
[401 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


must be made; and the other, who did not understand, 
answered — 

“Oh, do anything! save her!” 

Then going back to her, he sank upon the carpet, and 
lay there with his head leaning against the edge of her 
bed, sobbing. 

“Don't cry,” she said to him. “Soon I shall not 
trouble you any more.” 

\ “Why was it? Who drove you to it?” 

She replied. “It had to be, my dear!” 

“ Weren’t you happy? Is it my fault? I did all I could ! ” 

“Yes, that is true — you are good — you.” 

And she passed her hand slowly over his hair. The 
sweetness of this sensation deepened his sadness; he 
felt his whole being dissolving in despair at the thought 
that he must lose her, just when she was confessing more 
love for him than ever. And he could think of nothing; 
he did not know, he did not dare; the urgent need for 
some immediate resolution gave the finishing stroke 
to the turmoil of his mind. 

So she had done, she thought, with all the treachery, 
and meanness, and numberless desires that had tortured 
her. She hated no one now; a twilight dimness was 
settling upon her thoughts, and, of all earthly noises, 
Emma heard none but the intermittent lamentations 
of this poor heart, sweet and indistinct like the echo of a 
symphony dying away. 

“Bring me the child,” she said, raising herself on her 
elbow. 

“You are not worse, are you?” asked Charles. 

“No, no!” 

The child, serious, and still half-asleep, was carried 
[402] 


MADAME BOVARY 


in on the servant's arm in her long white nightgown, 
from which her bare feet peeped out. She looked won- 
deringly at the disordered room, and half-closed her eyes, 
dazzled by the candles burning on the table. They 
reminded her, no doubt, of the morning of New Year's 
day and Mid-Lent, when thus awakened early by candle- 
light she came to her mother’s bed to fetch her presents, 
for she began saying — 

“But where is it, mamma?" And as everybody was 
silent, “But I can’t see my little stocking." 

Felicite held her over the bed while she still kept 
looking towards the mantelpiece. 

“Has nurse taken it?" she asked. 

And at this name, that carried her back to the memory 
of her adulteries and her calamities, Madame Bovary 
turned away her head, as at the loathing of another 
bitterer poison that rose to her mouth. But Berthe 
remained perched on the bed. 

“Oh, how big your eyes are, mamma! How pale you 
are! how hot you are!" 

Her mother looked at her. “I am frightened!" cried 
the child, recoiling. 

Emma took her hand to kiss it; the child struggled. 

“That will do. Take her away," cried Charles, who 
was sobbing in the alcove. 

Then the symptoms ceased for a moment; she seemed 
less agitated; and at every insignificant word, at every 
respiration a little more easy, he regained hope. At last, 
when Canivet came in, he threw himself into his arms. 

“Ah! it is you. Thanks! You are good! But she 
is better. See! look at her." 

His colleague was by no means of this opinion, and, as 

[403] 


MADAME BOVARY 


he said of himself, “never beating about the bush/ 5 
he prescribed an emetic in order to empty the stomach 
completely. 

She soon began vomiting blood. Her lips became 
drawn. Her limbs were convulsed, her whole body 
covered with brown spots, and her pulse slipped beneath 
the fingers like a stretched thread, like a harp-string 
nearly breaking. 

After this she began to scream horribly. She cursed 
the poison, railed at it, and implored it to be quick, 
and thrust away with her stiffened arms everything that 
Charles, in more agony than herself, tried to make her 
drink. He stood up, his handkerchief to his lips, with 
a rattling sound in his throat, weeping, and choked by 
sobs that shook his whole body. Felicite was running 
hither and thither in the room. Homais, motionless, 
uttered great sighs; and Monsieur Canivet, always 
retaining his self-command, nevertheless began to feel 
uneasy. 

“The devil! yet she has been purged, and from the 
moment that the cause ceases ” 

“The effect must cease,” said Homais, “that is 
evident.” 

“Oh, save her!” cried Bovary. 

And, without listening to the chemist, who was still 
venturing the hypothesis, “ It is perhaps a salutary 
paroxysm,” Canivet was about to adminster some 
theriac, when they heard the cracking of a whip; all 
the windows rattled, and a post-chaise drawn by three 
horses abreast, up to their ears in mud, drove at a gallop 
round the corner of the market. It was Doctor Lariviere. 

The apparition of a god would not have caused more 

[404] 


MADAME BOVARY 


commotion. Bovary raised his hands; Canivet stopped 
short; and Homais pulled off his skull-cap long before 
the doctor had come in. 

He belonged to that great school of surgery begotten 
of Bichat, to that generation, now extinct, of philosophical 
practitioners, who, loving their art with a fanatical 
love, exercised it with enthusiasm and wisdom. Every- 
one in his hospital trembled when he was angry; and 
his students so revered him that they tried, as soon as 
they were themselves in practice, to imitate him as much 
as possible. So that in all the towns about they were 
found wearing his long wadded merino overcoat and black 
frock-coat, whose buttoned cuffs slightly covered his 
brawny hands — very beautiful hands, and that never 
knew gloves, as though to be more ready to plunge into 
suffering. Disdainful of honours, of titles, and of acade- 
mies, like one of the old Knight-Hospitallers, generous, 
fatherly to the poor, and practising virtue without 
believing in it, he would almost have passed for a saint 
if the keenness of his intellect had not caused him to 
be feared as a demon. His glance, more penetrating 
than his bistouries, looked straight into your soul, and 
dissected every lie athwart all assertions and all reticences. 
And thus he went along, full of that debonair majesty 
that is given by the consciousness of great talent, of 
fortune, and of forty years of a Iabourious and irre- 
proachable life. 

He frowned as soon as he had passed the door when 
he saw the cadaverous face of Emma stretched out on 
her back with her mouth open. Then, while apparently 
listening to Canivet, he rubbed his fingers up and down 
beneath his nostrils, and repeated — 

[405 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Good! good!” 

But he made a slow gesture with his shoulders. Bovary 
watched him; they looked at one another; and this man, 
accustomed as he was to the sight of pain, could not keep 
back a tear that fell on his shirt-frill. 

He tried to take Canivet into the next room. Charles 
followed him. 

“She is very ill, isn’t she? If we put on sinapisms? 
Anything! Oh, think of something, you who have saved 
so many!” 

Charles caught him in both his arms, and gazed at 
him wildly, imploringly, half-fainting against his breast. 

“Come, my poor fellow, courage! There is nothing 
more to be done.” 

And Doctor Lariviere turned away. 

“You are going?” 

“ I will come back.” 

He went out only to give an order to the coachman, 
with Monsieur Canivet, who did not care either to have 
Emma die under his hands. 

The chemist rejoined them on the Place. He could 
not by temperament keep away from celebrities, so he 
begged Monsieur Lariviere to do him the signal honour 
of accepting some breakfast. 

He sent quickly to the “Lion d’Or” for some pigeons; 
to the butcher’s for all the cutlers that were to be had; 
to Tuvache for cream; and to Lestiboudois for eggs; 
and the druggist himself aided in the preparations, while 
Madame Homais was saying as she pulled together the 
strings of her jacket — 

“You must excuse us, sir, for in this poor place, when 

one hasn’t been told the night before ” 

[406] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Wine glasses !” whispered Homais. 

“If only we were in town, we could fall back upon 
stuffed trotters.” 

“Be quiet! Sit down, doctor!” 

He thought fit, after the first few mouthfuls, to give 
some details as to the catastrophe. 

“We first had a feeling of siccity in the pharynx, 
then intolerable pains at the epigastrium, super-pur- 
gation, coma.” 

“But how did she poison herself?” 

“I don’t know, doctor, and I don’t even know where 
she can have procured the arsenious acid.” 

Justin, who was just bringing in a pile of plates, began 
to tremble. 

“What’s the matter?” said the chemist. 

At this question the young man dropped the whole 
lot on the ground with a crash. 

“Imbecile!” cried Homais, “awkward lout! block- 
head! confounded ass!” 

But suddenly controlling himself — 

“I wished, doctor, to make an analysis, and primo I 
delicately introduced a tube ” 

“You would have done better,” said the physician, 
“to introduce your fingers into her throat.” 

His colleague was silent, having just before privately 
received a severe lecture about his emetic, so that this 
good Canivet, so arrogant and so verbose at the time of 
the club-foot, was to-day very mosted. He smiled 
without ceasing in an approving manner. 

Homais dilated in Amphytrionic pride, and the affect- 
ing thought of Bovary vaguely contributed to his pleasure 
by a kind of egotistic reflex upon himself. Then the 

[ 407 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


presence of the doctor transported him. He displayed 
his erudition, cited pell-mell cantharides, upas, the 
manchineel, vipers. 

“I have even read that various persons have found 
themselves under toxicological symptoms, and, as it 
were, thunderstricken by black-pudding that had been 
subjected to a too vehement fumigation. At least, this 
was stated in a very fine report drawn up by one of our 
pharmaceutical chiefs, one of our masters, the illustrious 
Cadet de Gassicourt!” 

Madame Homais reappeared, carrying one of those 
shaky machines that are heated with spirits of wine; 
for Homais liked to make his coffee at table, having, 
moreover, torrefied it, pulverised it, and mixed it himself. 

“ Saccharum, doctor?” said he, offering the sugar. 

Then he had all his children brought down, anxious 
to have the physician’s opinion on their constitutions. 

At last Monsieur Lariviere was about to leave, when 
Madame Homais asked for a consultation about her 
husband. He was making his blood too thick by going 
to sleep every evening after dinner. 

“Oh, it isn’t his blood that’s too thick,” said the 
physician. 

And, smiling a little at his unnoticed joke, the doctor 
opened the door. But the chemist’s shop was full of 
people; he had the greatest difficulty in getting rid of 
Monsieur Tuvache, who feared his spouse would get 
inflammation of the lungs, because she was in the habit 
of spitting on the ashes; then of Monsieur Binet, who 
sometimes experienced sudden attacks of great hunger; 
and of Madame Caron, who suffered from tinglings; 
of Lheureux, who had vertigo; of Lestiboudois, who had 
[408] 


MADAME BOVARY 


rheumatism; and of Madame Lefran^ois, who had 
heartburn. At last the three horses started; and it was 
the general opinion that he had not shown himself at 
all obliging. 

Public attention was distracted by the appearance of 
Monsieur Bournisien, who was going across the market 
with the holy oil. 

Homais, as was due to his principles, compared priests 
to ravens attracted by the odour of death. The sight 
of an ecclesiastic was personally disagreeable to him, 
for the cassock made him think of the shroud, and he 
detested the one from some fear of the other. 

Nevertheless, not shrinking from what he called his 
mission, he returned to Bovary’s in company with Cani- 
vet whom Monsieur Lariviere, before leaving, had 
strongly urged to make this visit; and he would, but for 
his wife’s objections, have taken his two sons with him, 
in order to accustom them to great occasions; that this 
might be a lesson, an example, a solemn picture, that 
should remain in their heads later on. 

The room when they went in was full of mournful 
solemnity. On the work-table, covered over with a white 
cloth, there were five or six small balls of cotton in a silver 
dish, near a large crucifix between two lighted candles. 

Emma, her chin sunken upon her breast, had her 
eyes inordinately wide open, and her poor hands wandered 
over the sheets with that hideous and soft movement of 
the dying, that seems as if they wanted already to cover 
themselves with the shroud. Pale as a statue and with 
eyes red as fire, Charles, not weeping, stood opposite 
her at the foot of the bed, while the priest, bending one 
knee, was muttering words in a low voice. 

[409] 


MADAME BOVARY 


She turned her face slowly, and seemed filled with 
joy on seeing suddenly the violet stole, no doubt finding 
again, in the midst of a temporary lull in her pain, the 
lost voluptuousness of her first mystical transports, 
with the visions of eternal beatitude that were 
beginning. 

The priest rose to take the crucifix; then she stretched 
forward her neck as one who is athirst, and glueing her 
lips to the body of the Man-God, she pressed upon it 
with all her expiring strength the fullest kiss of love that 
she had ever given. Then he recited the Misereatur 
and the Indulgentiam , dipped his right thumb in the 
oil, and began to give extreme unction. First, upon 
the eyes, that had so coveted all worldly pomp; then 
upon the nostrils, that had been greedy of the warm 
breeze and amorous odours; then upon the mouth, 
that had uttered lies, that had curled with pride and 
cried out in lewdness; then upon the hands that had 
delighted in sensual touches; and finally upon the 
soles of the feet, so swift of yore, when she was run- 
ning to satisfy her desires, and that would now walk 
no more. 

The cure wiped his fingers, threw the bit of cotton 
dipped in oil into the fire, and came and sat down by 
the dying woman, to tell her that she must now blend 
her sufferings with those of Jesus Christ and abandon 
herself to the divine mercy. 

Finishing his exhortations, he tried to place in her hand 
a blessed candle, symbol of the celestial glory with which 
she was soon to be surrounded. Emma, too weak, 
could not close her fingers, and the taper, but for Mon- 
sieur Bournisien would have fallen to the ground. 

[410] 


MADAME BOVARY 


However, she was not quite so pale, and her face had 
an expression of serenity as if the sacrament had cured 
her. 

The priest did not fail to point this out; he even 
explained to Bovary that the Lord sometimes prolonged 
the life of persons when he thought it meet for their 
salvation; and Charles remembered the day when, 
so near death, she had received the communion. Perhaps 
there was no need to despair, he thought. 

In fact, she looked around her slowly, as one awaken- 
ing from a dream; then in a distinct voice she asked for 
her looking-glass, and remained some time bending 
over it, until the big tears fell from her eyes. Then 
she turned away her head with a sigh and fell back upon 
the pillows. 

Her chest soon began panting rapidly; the whole 
of her tongue protruded from her mouth; her eyes, 
as they rolled, grew paler, like the two globes of a lamp 
that is going out, so that one might have thought her 
already dead but for the fearful labouring of her ribs, 
shaken by violent breathing, as if the soul were strug- 
gling to free itself. Felicite knelt down before the 
crucifix, and the druggist himself slightly bent his knees, 
while Monsieur Canivet looked out vaguely at the 
Place. Bournisien had again begun to pray, his face 
bowed against the edge of the bed, his long black cas- 
sock trailing behind him in the room. Charles was 
on the other side, on his knees, his arms outstretched 
towards Emma. He had taken her hands and pressed 
them, shuddering at every beat of her heart, as at the 
shaking of a falling ruin. As the death-rattle became 
stronger the priest prayed faster; his prayers mingled 
C 4X1 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 

with the stifled sobs of Bovary, and sometimes all seemed 
lost in the muffled murmur of the Latin syllables that 
tolled like a passing bell. 

Suddenly on the pavement was heard a loud noise of 
clogs and the clattering of a stick; and a voice rose — 
a raucous voice — that sang — 

“Maids in the warmth oj a summer day 
Dream oj love and of love alway” 

Emma raised herself like a galvanised corpse, her hair 
undone, her eyes fixed, staring. 

“ Where the sickle blades have been, 

Nannette , gathering ears of corn , 

Passes bending down, my queen , 

To the earth where they were horn ” 

“The blind man!” she cried. And Emma began to 
laugh, an atrocious, frantic, despairing laugh, thinking 
she saw the hideous face of the poor wretch that stood 
out against the eternal night like a menace. 

“ The wind is strong this summer day, 

Her petticoat has flown away” 

She fell back upon the mattress in a convulsion. They 
all drew near. She was dead. 


[ 412 3 


IX 


'T'HERE is always after the death of anyone a kind 
* of stupefaction; so difficult is it to grasp this advent 
of nothingness and to resign ourselves to believe in it. 
But still, when he saw that she did not move, Charles 
threw himself upon her, crying — 

“Farewell! farewell !” 

Homais and Canivet dragged him from the room. 

“Restrain yourself !” 

“Yes,” said he, struggling, “I’ll be quiet. I’ll not do 
anything. But leave me alone. I want to see her. 
She is my wife!” 

And he wept. 

“Cry,” said the chemist; “let nature take her course; 
that will solace you.” 

Weaker than a child, Charles let himself be led down- 
stairs into the sitting-room, and Monsieur Homais soon 
went home. On the Place he was accosted by the blind 
man, who, having dragged himself as far as Yonville, 
in the hope of getting the antiphlogistic pommade, was 
asking every passer-by where the druggist lived. 

“There now! as if I hadn't got other fish to fry. Well, 
so much the worse; you must come later on.” 

And he entered the shop hurriedly. 

He had to write two letters, to prepare a soothing 
potion for Bovary, to invent some lie that would conceal 
the poisoning, and work it up into an article for the 

[413 i 


MADAME BOVARY 


“Fanal,” without counting the people who were waiting 
to get the news from him; and when the Yonvillers had 
all heard his story of the arsenic that she had mistaken 
for sugar in making a vanilla cream, Homais once more 
returned to Bovary’s. 

He found him alone (Monsieur Canivet had left), 
sitting in an arm-chair near the window, staring with an 
idiotic look at the flags of the floor. 

“Now,” said the chemist, “you ought yourself to 
fix the hour for the ceremony.” 

“Why? What ceremony?” Then, in a stammering, 
frightened voice, “Oh, no! not that. No! I want to 
see her here.” 

, Homais, to keep himself in countenance, took up a 
water-bottle on the whatnot to water the geraniums. 

“Ah! thanks,” said Charles; “you are good.” 

But he did not finish, choking beneath the crowd 
of memories that this action of the druggist recalled to 
him. 

Then to distract him, Homais thought fit to talk 
a little horticulture: plants wanted humidity. Charles 
bowed his head in sign of approbation. 

“ Besides, the fine days will soon be here again.” 

“Ah!” said Bovary. 

The druggist, at his wit’s end, began softly to draw 
aside the small window-curtain. 

“Hallo! there’s Monsieur Tuvache passing.” 

Charles repeated like a machine — 

“Monsieur Tuvache passing!” 

Homais did not dare to speak to him again about 
the funeral arrangements; it was the priest who suc- 
ceeded in reconciling him to them. 

[414] 


MADAME BOVARY 


He shut himself up in his consulting-room, took a pen, 
and after sobbing for some time, wrote — 

“I wish her to be buried in her wedding-dress, with 
white shoes, and a wreath. Her hair is to be spread out 
over her shoulders. Three coffins, one of oak, one of 
mahogany, one of lead. Let no one say anything to me. 
I shall have strength. Over all there is to be placed a 
large piece of green velvet. This is my wish; see that 
it is done.” 

The two men were much surprised at Bovary’s ro- 
mantic ideas. The chemist at once went to him and 
said — 

“This velvet seems to me a superfetation. Besides, 
the expense ” 

“What’s that to you?” cried Charles. “Leave me! 
You did not love her. Go!” 

The priest took him by the arm for a turn in the gar- 
den. He discoursed on the vanity of earthly things. 
God was very great, was very good: one must submit to 
his decrees without a murmur; nay, must even thank 
him. 

Charles burst out into blasphemies: “ I hate your God!” 

“The spirit of rebellion is still upon you,” sighed the 
ecclesiastic. 

Bovary was far away. He was walking with great 
strides along by the wall, near the espalier, and he ground 
his teeth; he raised to heaven looks of malediction, but 
not so much as a leaf stirred. 

A fine rain was falling: Charles, whose chest was bare, 
at last began to shiver; he went in and sat down in the 
kitchen. 

At six o’clock a noise like a clatter of old iron was 

[415] 


MADAME BOVARY 


heard on the Place; it was the “Hirondelle” coming in, 
and he remained with his forehead against the window- 
pane, watching all the passengers get out, one after the 
other. Felicite put down a mattress for him in the 
drawing-room. He threw himself upon it and fell 
asleep. , 

Although a philosopher, Monsieur Homais respected 
the dead. So bearing no grudge to poor Charles, he 
came back again in the evening to sit up with the body, 
bringing with him three volumes and a pocket-book 
for taking notes. 

Monsieur Bournisien was there, and two large candles 
were burning at the head of the bed, that had been taken 
out of the alcove. The druggist, on whom the silence 
weighed, was not long before he began formulating some 
regrets about this “ unfortunate young woman,” and the 
priest replied that there was nothing to do now but pray 
for her. 

“Yet,” Homais went on, “one of two things; either 
she died in a state of grace (as the Church has it), and 
then she has no need of our prayers; or else she departed 
impertinent (that is, I believe, the ecclesiastical expres- 
sion), and then ” 

Bournisien interrupted him, replying testily that it 
was none the less necessary to pray. 

“But,” objected the chemist, “since God knows all 
our needs, what can be the good of prayer?” 

“What!” cried the ecclesiastic, “prayer! Why, aren't 
you a Christian?” 

“Excuse me,” said Homais; “I admire Christianity. 
To begin with, it enfranchised the slaves, introduced 

into the world a morality ” 

[ 4 i6] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“That isn't the question. All the texts " 

“Oh! oh! As to texts, look at history; it is known 
that all the texts have been falsified by the Jesuits." 

Charles came in, and advancing towards the bed, 
slowly drew the curtains. 

Emma's head was turned towards her right shoulder, 
the corner of her mouth, which was open, seemed like 
a black hole at the lower part of her face; her two thumbs 
were bent into the palms of her hands; a kind of white 
dust besprinkled her lashes, and her eyes were beginning 
to disappear in that viscous pallor that looks like a thin 
web, as if spiders had spun it over. The sheet sunk in 
from her breast to her knees, and then rose at the tips 
of her toes, and it seemed to Charles that infinite masses, 
an enormous load, were weighing upon her. 

The church clock struck two. They could hear the 
loud murmur , of the river flowing in the darkness at the 
foot of the terrace. Monsieur Bournisien from time to 
time blew his nose noisily, and Homais’ pen was scratch- 
ing over the paper. 

“Come, my good friend," he said, “withdraw; this 
spectacle is tearing you to pieces." 

Charles once gone, the chemist and the cure recom- 
menced their discussions. 

“Read Voltaire," said the one, “read D'HoIbach, 
read the ‘Encyclopaedia'!" 

“Read the ‘Letters of some Portuguese Jews,"’ said 
the other; “read ‘The Meaning of Christianity,' by 
Nicolas, formerly a magistrate." 

They grew warm, they grew red, they both talked at 
once without listening to each other. Bournisien was 
scandalised at such audacity; Homais marvelled at 
[ 417 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


such stupidity; and they were on the point of insulting 
one another when Charles suddenly reappeared. A fasci- 
nation drew him. He was continually coming upstairs. 

He stood opposite her, the better to see her, and he 
lost himself in a contemplation so deep that it was no 
longer painful. 

He recalled stories of catalepsy, the marvels of magne- 
tism, and he said to himself that by willing it with all 
his force he might perhaps succeed in reviving her. 
Once he even bent towards her, and cried in a low voice, 
“Emma! Emma!” His strong breathing made the 
flames of the candles tremble against the wall. 

At daybreak Madame Bovary senior arrived. Charles 
as he embraced her burst into another flood of tears. 
She tried, as the chemist had done, to make some remarks 
to him on the expenses of the funeral. He became so 
angry that she was silent, and he even commissioned her 
to go to town at once and buy what was necessary. 

Charles remained alone the whole afternoon; they 
had taken Berthe to Madame Homais’; Felicite was in 
the room upstairs with Madame Lefrangois. 

In the evening he had some visitors. He rose, pressed 
their hands, unable to speak. Then they sat down near 
one another, and formed a large semicircle in front of 
the fire. With lowered faces, and swinging one leg 
crossed over the other knee, they uttered deep sighs at 
intervals; each one was inordinately bored, and yet none 
would be the first to go. 

Homais, when he returned at nine o’clock (for the last 
two days only Homais seemed to have been on the 
Place), was laden with a stock of camphor, of benzine, 
and aromatic herbs. He also carried a large jar full of 

os] 


MADAME BOVARY 


chlorine water, to keep off all miasmata. Just then the 
servant, Madame Lefran^ois, and Madame Bovary 
senior were busy about Emma, finishing dressing her, 
and they were drawing down the long stiff veil that 
covered her to her satin shoes. 

Felicite was sobbing — “Ah! my poor mistress! my 
poor mistress!” 

“Look at her,” said the landlady, sighing; “how pretty 
she still is! Now, couldn’t you swear she was going to 
get up in a minute?” 

Then they bent over her to put on her wreath. They 
had to raise the head a little, and a rush of black liquid 
issued, as if she were vomiting, from her mouth. 

“Oh, goodness! The dress; take care!” cried Madame 
Lefransois. “Now, just "come and help,” she said to the 
chemist. “Perhaps you’re afraid?” 

“I afraid?” replied he, shrugging his shoulders. “I 
dare say! I’ve seen all sorts of things at the hospital 
when I was studying pharmacy. We used to make 
punch in the dissecting room! Nothingness does not 
terrify a philosopher; and, as I often say, I even intend 
to leave my body to the hospitals, in order, later on, 
to serve science.” 

The cure on his arrival inquired how Monsieur Bovary 
was, and, on the reply of the druggist, went on — “The 
blow, you see, is still too recent.” 

Then Homais congratulated him on not being exposed, 
like other people, to the loss of a beloved companion; 
whence there followed a discussion on the celibacy of 
priests. 

“For,” said the chemist, “it is unnatural that a man 
should do without women! There have been crimes ” 

[ 419 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“But, good heaven !” cried the ecclesiastic, “how 
do you expect an individual who is married to keep the 
secrets of the confessional, for example?” 

Homais fell foul of the confessional. Bournisien de- 
fended it; he enlarged on the acts of restitution that it 
brought about. He cited various anecdotes about thieves 
who had suddenly become honest. Military men on 
approaching the tribunal of penitence had felt the scales 
fall from their eyes. At Fribourg there was a minister 

His companion was asleep. Then he felt somewhat 
stifled by the over-heavy atmosphere of the room; he 
opened the window; this awoke the chemist. 

“Come, take a pinch of snuff,” he said to him. “Take 
it, it’ll relieve you.” 

A continual barking was heard in the distance. “Do 
you hear that dog howling?” said the chemist. 

“They smell the dead,” replied the priest. “It’s like 
bees; they leave their hives on the decease of any person.” 

Homais made no remark upon these prejudices, for 
he had again dropped asleep. Monsieur Bournisien, 
stronger than he, went on moving his lips gently for some 
time, then insensibly his chin sank down, he let fall his 
big black boot, and began to snore. 

They sat opposite one another, with protruding 
stomachs, puffed-up faces, and frowning looks, after so 
much disagreement uniting at last in the same human 
weakness, and they moved no more than the corpse by 
their side, that seemed to be sleeping. 

Charles coming in did not wake them. It was the 
last time; he came to bid her farewell. 

The aromatic herbs were still smoking, and spirals of 
bluish vapour blended at the window-sash with the fog 
[420] 


MADAME BOVARY 


that was coming in. There were few stars, and the night 
was warm. The wax of the candles fell in great drops 
upon the sheets of the bed. Charles watched them burn, 
tiring his eyes against the glare of their yellow flame. 

The watering on the satin gown shimmered white 
as moonlight. Emma was lost beneath it; and it seemed 
to him that, spreading beyond her own self, she blended 
confusedly with everything around her — - the silence, 
the night, the passing wind, the damp odours rising from 
the ground. 

Then suddenly he saw her in the garden at Tostes, 
on a bench against the thorn hedge, or else at Rouen 
in the streets, on the threshold of their house, in the 
yard at Bertaux. He again heard the laughter of the 
happy boys beneath the appletrees: the room was filled 
with the perfume of her hair; and her dress rustled 
in his arms with a noise like electricity. The dress was 
still the same. 

For a long while he thus recalled all his lost joys, 
her attitudes, her movements, the sound of her voice. 
Upon one fit of despair followed another, and even 
others, inexhaustible as the waves of an overflowing sea. 

A terrible curiosity seized him. Slowly, with the tips 
of his fingers, palpitating, he lifted her veil. But he 
uttered a cry of horror that awoke the other two. 

They dragged him down into the sitting-room. Then 
Felicite came up to say that he wanted some of her hair. 

“Cut some off,” replied the druggist. 

And as she did not dare to, he himself stepped forward, 
scissors in hand. He trembled so that he pierced the 
skin of the temple in several places. At last, stiffening 
himself against emotion, Homais gave two or three great 

[421 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


cuts at random that left white patches amongst that 
beautiful black hair. 

The chemist and the cure plunged anew into their 
occupations, not without sleeping from time to time, 
of which they accused each other reciprocally at each 
fresh awakening. Then Monsieur Bournisien sprinkled 
the room with holy water and Homais threw a little 
chlorine water on the floor. 

Felicite had taken care to put on the chest of drawers, 
for each of them, a bottle of brandy, some cheese, and 
a large roll; and the druggist, who could not hold out 
any longer, about four in the morning sighed — 

“My word! I should like to take some sustenance.” 

The priest did not need any persuading; he went out 
to go and say mass, came back, and then they ate and 
hob-nobbed, giggling a little without knowing why, 
stimulated by that vague gaiety that comes upon us 
after times of sadness, and at the last glass the priest 
said to the druggist, as he clapped him on the shoulder — 

“We shall end by understanding one another.” 

In the passage downstairs they met the undertaker’s 
men, who were coming in. Then Charles for two hours 
had to suffer the torture of hearing the hammer resound 
against the wood. Next day they lowered her into her 
oak coffin, that was fitted into the other two; but as the 
bier was too large, they had to fill up the gaps with the 
wool of a mattress. At last, when the three lids had 
been planed down, nailed, soldered, it was placed outside 
in front of the door; the house was thrown open, and the 
people of Yonville began to flock round. 

Old Rouault arrived, and fainted on the Place when he 
saw the black cloth ! 


[422] 


X 


LJ E had only received the chemist’s letter thirty-six 
* ^ hours after the event; and, from consideration for 
his feelings, Homais had so worded it that it was impos- 
sible to make out what it was all about. 

First, the old fellow had fallen as if struck by apo- 
plexy. Next, he understood that she was not dead, but 
she might be. At last, he had put on his blouse, taken 
his hat, fastened his spurs to his boots, and set out at 
full speed; and the whole of the way old Rouault, pant- 
ing, was torn by anguish. Once even he was obliged to 
dismount. He was dizzy; he heard voices round about 
him; he felt himself going mad. 

Day broke. He saw three black hens asleep in a 
tree. He shuddered, horrified at this omen. Then he 
promised the Holy Virgin three chasubles for the church, 
and that he would go barefooted from the cemetery 
at Bertaux to the chapel of Vassonville. 

He entered Maromme shouting for the people of the 
inn, burst open the door with a thrust of his shoulder, 
made for a sack of oats, emptied a bottle of sweet cider 
into the manger, and again mounted his nag, whose feet 
struck fire as it dashed along. 

He said to himself that no doubt they would save her; 
the doctors would discover some remedy surely. He re- 
membered all the miraculous cures he had been told about. 
Then she appeared to him dead. She was there, before 

[ 423 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


his eyes, lying on her back in the middle of the road. He 
reined up, and the hallucination disappeared. 

At Quincampoix, to give himself heart, he drank 
three cups of coffee one after the other. He fancied 
they had made a mistake in the name in writing. He 
looked for the letter in his pocket, felt it there, but did 
not dare to open it. 

At last he began to think it was all a joke; some- 
one’s spite, the jest of some wag; and besides, if she were 
dead, one would have known it. But no! There was 
nothing extraordinary about the country; the sky was 
blue, the trees swayed; a flock of sheep passed. He saw 
the village; he was seen coming bending forward upon 
his horse, belabouring it with great blows, the girths 
dripping with blood. 

When he had recovered consciousness, he fell, weep- 
ing, into Bovary’s arms: “My girl! Emma! my child! 
tell me ” 

The other replied, sobbing, “I don’t know! I don’t 
know! It’s a curse!” 

The druggist separated them. “These horrible details 
are useless. I will tell this gentleman all about it. Here 
are the people coming. Dignity! Come now! Philosophy!” 

The poor fellow tried to show himself brave, and 
repeated several times, “Yes! courage!” 

“Oh,” cried the old man, “so I will have, by God! 
I’ll go along o’ her to the end!” 

The bell began tolling. All was ready; they had to 
start. And seated in a stall of the choir, side by side, 
they saw pass and repass in front of them continually 
the three chanting choristers. 

The serpent-player was blowing with all his might. 

[ 424 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Monsieur Bournisien, in full vestments, was singing in 
a shrill voice. He bowed before the tabernacle, raising 
his hands, stretched out his arms. Lestiboudois went 
about the church with his whalebone stick. The bier 
stood near the lectern, between four rows of candles. 
Charles felt inclined to get up and put them out. 

Yet he tried to stir himself to a feeling of devotion, 
to throw himself into the hope of a future life in which 
he should see her again. He imagined to himself she 
had gone on a long journey, far away, for a long time. 
But when he thought of her lying there, and that all was 
over, that they would lay her in the earth, he was seized 
with a fierce, gloomy, despairful rage. At times he 
thought he felt nothing more, and he enjoyed this lull in 
his pain, whilst at the same time he reproached himself 
for being a wretch. 

The sharp noise of an iron-ferruled stick was heard on 
the stones, striking them at irregular intervals. It came 
from the end of the church, and stopped short at the 
lower aisles. A man in a coarse brown jacket knelt 
down painfully. It was Hippolyte, the stable-boy at the 
“Lion d’Or.” He had put on his new leg. 

One of the choristers went round the nave making 
a collection, and the coppers chinked one after the other 
on the silver plate. 

“Oh, make haste! I am in pain!” cried Bovary, 
angrily throwing him a five-franc piece. The church- 
man thanked him with a deep bow. 

They sang, they knelt, they stood up; it was endless! 
He remembered that once, in the early times, they had 
been to mass together, and they had sat down on the 
other side, on the right, by the wall. The bell began 

[ 4 25 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


again. There was a great moving of chairs; the bearers 
slipped their three staves under the coffin, and everyone 
left the church. 

Then Justin appeared at the door of the shop. He 
suddenly went in again, pale, staggering. 

People were at the windows to see the procession pass. 
Charles at the head walked erect. He affected a brave 
air, and saluted with a nod those who, coming out from 
the lanes or from their doors, stood amidst the crowd. 

The six men, three on either side, walked slowly, 
panting a little. The priests, the choristers, and the two 
choir-boys recited the De profundis, and their voices 
echoed over the fields, rising and falling with their un- 
dulations. Sometimes they disappeared in the windings 
of the path; but the great silver cross rose always be- 
tween the trees. 

The women followed in black cloaks with turned-down 
hoods; each of them carried in her hands a large lighted 
candle, and Charles felt himself growing weaker at this 
continual repetition of prayers and torches, beneath this 
oppressive odour of wax and of cassocks. A fresh breeze 
was blowing; the rye and colza were sprouting, little 
dew-drops trembled at the roadsides and on the haw- 
thorn hedges. All sorts of joyous sounds filled the air; 
the jolting of a cart rolling afar off in the ruts, the crow- 
ing of a cock, repeated again and again, or the gambling 
of a foal running away under the apple-trees. The 
pure sky was fretted with rosy clouds; a bluish haze 
rested upon the cots covered with iris. Charles as he 
passed recognised each courtyard. He remembered 
mornings like this, when, after visiting some patient, 
he came out from one and returned to her. 

[ 426 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


The black cloth bestrewn with white beads blew up 
from time to time, laying bare the coffin. The tired 
bearers walked more slowly, and it advanced with con- 
stant jerks, like a boat that pitches with every wave. 

They reached the cemetery. The men went right down 
to a place in the grass where a grave was dug. They 
ranged themselves all round; and while the priest spoke, 
the red soil thrown up at the sides kept noiselessly slip- 
ping down at the corners. 

Then when the four ropes were arranged the coffin 
was placed upon them. He watched it descend; it 
seemed descending for ever. At last a thud was heard; 
the ropes creaked as they were drawn up. Then Bour- 
nisien took the spade handed to him by Lestiboudois; 
with his left hand all the time sprinkling water, with the 
right he vigourously threw in a large spadeful; and the 
wood of the coffin, struck by the pebbles, gave forth that 
dread sound that seems to us the reverberation of eternity. 

The ecclesiastic passed the holy water sprinkler to his 
neighbour. This was Homais. He swung it gravely, 
then handed it to Charles, who sank to his knees in the 
earth and threw in handfuls of it, crying, “ Adieu !” 
He sent her kisses; he dragged himself towards the 
grave, to engulf himself with her. They led him away, 
and he soon grew calmer, feeling perhaps, like the others, 
a vague satisfaction that it was all over. 

Old Rouault on his way back began quietly smoking 
a pipe, which Homais in his innermost conscience thought 
not quite the thing. He also noticed that Monsieur 
Binet had not been present, and that Tuvache had 
“made off” after mass, and that Theodore, the notary’s 
servant, wore a blue coat, “as if one could not have got 
[ 427 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


a black coat, since that is the custom, by Jove!” And 
to share his observations with others he went from group 
to group. They were deploring Emma’s death, especially 
Lheureux, who had not failed to come to the funeral. 

“ Poor little woman ! What a trouble for her husband ! ” 

The druggist continued, “Do you know that but for 
me he would have committed some fatal attempt upon 
himself?” 

“Such a good woman! To think that I saw her only 
last Saturday in my shop.” 

“I haven’t had leisure,” said Homais, “to prepare 
a few words that I would have cast upon her tomb.” 

Charles on getting home undressed, and old Rouault 
put on his blue blouse. It was a new one, and as he had 
often during the journey wiped his eyes on the sleeves, 
the dye had stained his face, and the traces of tears made 
lines in the layer of dust that covered it. 

Madame Bovary senior was with them. All three 
were silent. At last the old fellow sighed — 

“Do you remember, my friend, that I went to Tostes 
once when you had just lost your first deceased? I 
consoled you at that time. I thought of something to 

say then, but now ” Then, with a loud groan that 

shook his whole chest, “Ah! this is the end for me, do you 
see! I saw my wife go, then my son, and now to-day it’s 
my daughter.” 

He wanted to go back at once to Bertaux, saying that 
he could not sleep in this house. He even refused to see 
his granddaughter. 

“No, no! It would grieve me too much. Only 
you’ll kiss her many times for me. Good’-bye! you’re 
a good fellow! And then I shall never forget that,” 
[428] 


MADAME BOVARY 


he said, slapping his thigh. “Never fear, you shall 
always have your turkey.” 

But when he reached the top of the hill he turned 
back, as he had turned once before on the road of Saint- 
Victor when he had parted from her. The windows of 
the village were all on fire beneath the slanting rays of 
the sun sinking behind the field. He put his hand over 
his eyes, and saw in the horizon an enclosure of walls, 
where trees here and there formed black clusters between 
white stones; then he went on his way at a gentle trot, 
for his nag had gone lame. 

Despite their fatigue, Charles and his mother stayed 
very long that evening talking together. They spoke 
of the days of the past and of the future. She would 
come to live at Yonville; she would keep house for him; 
they would never part again. She was ingenious and 
caressing, rejoicing in her heart at gaining once more 
an affection that had wandered from her for so many 
years. Midnight struck. The village as usual was 
silent, and Charles, awake, thought always of her. 

Rodolphe, who, to distract himself, had been rambling 
about the wood all day, was sleeping quietly in his cha- 
teau, and Leon, down yonder, always slept. 

There was another who at that hour was not asleep. 

On the grave between the pine-trees a child was on his 
knees weeping, and his heart, rent by sobs, was beating 
in the shadow beneath the load of an immense regret, 
sweeter than the moon and fathomless as the night. 
The gate suddenly grated. It was Lestiboudois; he 
came to fetch his spade, that he had forgotten. He 
recognised Justin climbing over the wall, and at last 
knew who was the culprit who stole his potatoes. 

[429] 


XI 


T HE next day Charles had the child brought back. 

She asked for her mamma. They told her she was 
away; that she would bring her back some playthings. 
Berthe spoke of her again several times, then at last 
thought no more of her. The child’s gaiety broke 
Bovary’s heart, and he had to bear besides the intoler- 
able consolations of the chemist. 

Money troubles soon began again, Monsieur Lheureux 
urging on anew his friend Vin^art, and Charles pledged 
himself for exorbitant sums; for he would never consent 
to let the smallest of the things that had belonged to 
her be sold. His mother was exasperated with him; he 
grew even more angry than she did. He had altogether 
changed. She left the house. 

Then everyone began “taking advantage” of him. 
Mademoiselle Lempereur presented a bill for six months’ 
teaching, although Emma had never taken a lesson 
(despite the receipted bill she had shown Bovary) ; 
it was an arrangement between the two women. The 
man at the circulating library demanded three years’ 
subscriptions; Mere Rolet claimed the postage due for 
some twenty letters, and when Charles asked for an 
explanation, she had the delicacy to reply — 

“Oh, I don’t know. It was for her business affairs.” 
With every debt he paid Charles thought he had come 
to the end of them. But others followed ceaselessly. 

[430] 


MADAME BOVARY 


He sent in accounts for professional attendance. He 
was shown the letters his wife had written. Then he had 
to apologise. 

Felicite now wore Madame Bovary’s gowns; not all, 
for he had kept some of them, and he went to look at 
them in her dressing-room, locking himself up there; 
she was about her height, and often Charles, seeing 
her from behind, was seized with an illusion, and cried 
out — 

“Oh, stay, stay!” 

But at Whitsuntide she ran away from Yonville, 
carried off by Theodore, stealing all that was left of the 
wardrobe. 

It was about this time that the widow Dupuis had the 
honour to inform him of the “marriage of Monsieur 
Leon Dupuis her son, notary at Yvetot, to Mademoiselle 
Leocadie Leboeuf of Bondeville.” Charles, among the 
other congratulations he sent him, wrote this sentence — 

“How glad my poor wife would have been!” 

One day when, wandering aimlessly about the house, 
he had gone up to the attic, he felt a pellet of fine paper 
under his slipper. He opened it and read: “Courage, 
Emma, courage. I would not bring misery into your 
life.” It was Rodolphe’s letter, fallen to the ground 
between the boxes, where it had remained, and that the 
wind from the dormer window had just blown towards 
the door. And Charles stood, motionless and staring, in 
the very same place where, long ago, Emma, in despair, 
and paler even than he, had thought of dying. At last 
he discovered a small R at the bottom of the second page. 
What did this mean? He remembered Rodolphe’s atten- 
tions, his sudden disappearance, his constrained air when 

[ 431 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


they had met two or three times since. But the respect- 
ful tone of the letter deceived him. 

“Perhaps they loved one another platonically,” he 
said to himself. 

Besides, Charles was not of those who go to the bottom 
of things; he shrank from the proofs, and his vague 
jealousy was lost in the immensity of his woe. 

Everyone, he thought, must have adored her; all 
men assuredly must have coveted her. She seemed 
but the more beautiful to him for this; he was seized 
with a lasting, furious desire for her, that inflamed his 
despair, and that was boundless, because it was now 
unrealisable. 

To please her, as if she were still living, he adopted 
her predilections, her ideas; he bought patent leather 
boots and took to wearing white cravats. He put 
cosmetics on his moustache, and, like her, signed notes of 
hand. She corrupted him from beyond the grave. 

He was obliged to sell his silver piece by piece; next 
he sold the drawing-room furniture. All the rooms were 
stripped; but the bedroom, her own room, remained as 
before. After his dinner Charles went up there. He 
pushed the round table in front of the fire, and drew 
up her arm-chair. He sat down opposite it. A candle 
burnt in one of the gilt candlesticks. Berthe by his side 
was painting prints. 

He suffered, poor man, at seeing her so badly dressed, 
with laceless boots, and the arm-holes of her pinafore 
torn down to the hips; for the charwoman took no care 
of her. But she was so sweet, so pretty, and her little 
head bent forward so gracefully, letting the dear fair 
hair fall over her rosy cheeks, that an infinite joy came 

C 432 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


upon him, a happiness mingled with bitterness, like those 
ill-made wines that taste of resin. He mended her toys, 
made her puppets from cardboard, or sewed up half- 
torn dolls. Then, if his eyes fell upon the workbox, 
a ribbon lying about, or even a pin left in a crack of the 
table, he began to dream, and looked so sad that she 
became as sad as he. 

No one now came to see them, for Justin had run away 
to Rouen, where he was a grocer’s assistant, and the 
druggist’s children saw less and less of the child, Monsieur 
Homais not caring, seeing the difference of their social 
position, to continue the intimacy. 

The blind man, whom he had not been able to cure 
with the pommade, had gone back to the hill of Bois- 
Guillaume, where he told the travellers of the vain at- 
tempt of the druggist, to such an extent, that Homais 
when he went to town hid himself behind the curtains 
of the “Hirondelle” to avoid meeting him. He detested 
him, and wishing, in the interests of his own reputation, 
to get rid of him at all costs, he directed against him a 
secret battery, that betrayed the depth of his intellect 
and the baseness of his vanity. Thus, for six consecu- 
tive months, one could read in the “Fanal de Rouen” 
editorials such as these — 

“All who bend their steps towards the fertile plains 
of Picardy have, no doubt, remarked, by the Bois-Guil- 
Iaume hill, a wretch suffering from a horrible facial wound. 
He importunes, persecutes one, and levies a regular tax 
on all travellers. Are we still living in the monstrous 
times of the Middle Ages, when vagabonds were per- 
mitted to display in our public places leprosy and scrof- 
ulas they had brought back from the Crusades?” 

[ 433 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


Or — 1 

“In spite of the laws against vagabondage, the ap- 
proaches to our great towns continue to be infected by 
bands of beggars. Some are seen going about alone, 
and these are not, perhaps, the least dangerous. What 
are our ediles about?” 

Then Homais invented anecdotes — 

“Yesterday, by the Bois-Guillaume hill, a skittish 

horse ” And then followed the story of an accident 

caused by the presence of the blind man. 

He managed so well that the fellow was locked up. 
But he was released. He began again, and Homais 
began again. It was a struggle. Homais won it, for 
his foe was condemned to life-long confinement in an 
asylum. 

This success emboldened him, and henceforth there 
was no longer a dog run over, a barn burnt down, a 
woman beaten in the parish, of which he did not im- 
mediately inform the public, guided always by the love 
of progress and the hate of priests. He instituted com- 
parisons between the elementary and clerical schools 
to the detriment of the latter; called to mind the mas- 
sacre of St. Bartholomew a propos of a grant of one 
hundred francs to the church, and denounced abuses, 
aired new views. That was his phrase. Homais was 
digging and delving; he was becoming dangerous. 

However, he was stifling in the narrow limits of jour- 
nalism, and soon a book, a work was necessary to him. 
Then he composed “General Statistics of the Canton 
of Yonville, followed by Climatological Remarks.” 
The statistics drove him to philosophy. He busied 
himself with great questions: the social problem, moral- 
[ 434 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


;sation of the poorer classes, pisciculture, caoutchouc, 
railways, etc. He even began to blush at being a 
bourgeois. He affected the artistic style, he smoked. 

, He bought two chic Pompadour statuettes to adorn his 
: drawing-room. 

He by no means gave up his shop. On the contrary, 
he kept well abreast of new discoveries. He followed 
the great movement of chocolates; he was the first to 
introduce “cocoa” and “revalenta” into the Seine- 
Inferieure. He was enthusiastic about the hydro-electric 
Pulvermacher chains; he wore one himself, and when 
at night he took off his flannel vest, Madame Homais 
stood quite dazzled before the golden spiral beneath 
which he was hidden, and felt her ardour redouble for 
this man more bandaged than a Scythian, and splendid 
as one of the Magi. 

He had fine ideas about Emma’s tomb. First he 
proposed a broken column with some drapery, next a 
pyramid, then a Temple of Vesta, a sort of rotunda, or 
else a “mass of ruins.” And in all his plans Homais 
always stuck to the weeping willow, which he looked 
upon as the indispensable symbol of sorrow. 

Charles and he made a journey to Rouen together 
} to look at some tombs at a funeral furnisher’s, accom- 
i panied by an artist, one Vaufrylard, a friend of Bridoux’s, 
who made puns all the time. At last, after having 
examined some hundred designs, having ordered an 
estimate and made another journey to Rouen, Charles 
decided in favour of a mausoleum, which on the two 
principal sides was to have a “spirit bearing an extin- 
guished torch.” 

As to the inscription, Homais could think of nothing so 

[ 435 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


fine as Sta viator , and he got no further; he racked his 
brain, he constantly repeated Sta viator. At last he hit 
upon Amabilen conjugem calcas , which was adopted. 

A strange thing was that Bovary, while continually 
thinking of Emma, was forgetting her. He grew desper- 
ate as he felt this image fading from his memory in spite 
of all efforts to retain it. Yet every night he dreamt 
of her; it was always the same dream. He drew near 
her, but when he was about to clasp her she fell into 
decay in his arms. 

For a week he was seen going to church in the evening. 
Monsieur Bournisien even paid him two or three visits, 
then gave him up. Moreover, the old fellow was grow- 
ing intolerant, fanatic, said Homais. He thundered 
against the spirit of the age, and never failed, every 
other week, in his sermon, to recount the death agony 
of Voltaire, who died devouring his excrements, as every- 
one knows. 

In spite of the economy with which Bovary lived, he 
was far from being able to pay off his old debts. Lheu- 
reux refused to renew any more bills. A distraint be- 
came imminent. Then he appealed to his mother, who 
consented to let him take a mortgage on her property, 
but with a great many recriminations against Emma; 
and in return for her sacrifice she asked for a shawl 
that had escaped the depredations of Felicite. Charles 
refused to give it her; they quarrelled. 

She made the first overtures of reconciliation by 
offering to have the little girl, who could help her in the 
house, to live with her. Charles consented to this, but 
when the time for parting came, all his courage failed 
him. Then there was a final, complete rupture. 

[ 436] 


MADAME BOVARY 


As his affections vanished, he clung more closely to 
the love of his child. She made him anxious, however, 
for she coughed sometimes, and had red spots on her 
cheeks. 

Opposite his house, flourishing and merry, was the 
family of the chemist, with whom everything was pros- 
pering. Napoleon helped him in the laboratory, Athalie 
embroidered him a skullcap, Irma cut out rounds of 
paper to cover the preserves, and Franklin recited Pythag- 
oras’ table in a breath. He was the happiest of fathers, 
the most fortunate of men. 

Not so! A secret ambition devoured him. Homais 
hankered after the cross of the Legion of Honour. He 
had plenty of claims to it. 

“ First, having at the time of the cholera distinguished 
myself by a boundless devotion; second, by having 
published, at my expense, various works of public utility, 
such as” (and he recalled his pamphlet entitled, “Cider, 
its manufacture and effects,” besides observations on 
the Ianigerous plant-louse, sent to the Academy; his 
volume of statistics, and down to his pharmaceutical 
thesis); “without counting that I am a member of 
several learned societies” (he was member of a single 
one). 

“In short!” he cried, making a pirouette, “if it were 
only for distinguishing myself at fires!” 

Then Homais inclined towards the Government. He 
secretly did the prefect great service during the elections. 
He sold himself — in a word, prostituted himself. He 
even addressed a petition to the sovereign in which he 
implored him to “do him justice”; he called him “our 
good king,” and compared him to Henri IV. 

[437] 


MADAME BOVARY 


And every morning the druggist rushed for the paper 
to see if his nomination were in it. It was never there. 
At last, unable to bear it any longer, he had a grass plot 
in his garden designed to represent the Star of the Cross 
of Honour with two little strips of grass running from 
the top to imitate the ribband. He walked round it 
with folded arms, meditating on the folly of the Govern- j 
ment and the ingratitude of men. 

From respect, or from a sort of sensuality that made 
him carry on his investigations slowly, Charles had not 
yet opened the secret drawer of a rosewood desk which 
Emma had generally used. One day, however, he sat 
down before it, turned the key, and pressed the spring. 
All Leon’s letters were there. There could be no doubt 
this time. He devoured them to the very last, ransacked 
every corner, all the furniture, all the drawers, behind 
the walls, sobbing, crying aloud, distraught, mad. He 
found a box and broke it open with a kick. Rodolphe’s 
portrait flew full in his face in the midst of the over- 
turned love-letters. 

People wondered at his despondency. He never went 
out, saw no one, refused even to visit his patients. Then 
they said “he shut himself up to drink.” 

Sometimes, however, some curious person climbed 
on to the garden hedge, and saw with amazement this 
long-bearded, shabbily clothed, wild man, who wept 
aloud as he walked up and down. 

In the evening in summer he took his little girl with 
him and led her to the cemetery. They came back at 
nightfall, when the only light left in the Place was that 
in Binet’s window. 

The voluptuousness of his grief was, however, incom- 

[438] 




MADAME BOVARY 


plete, for he had no one near him to share it, and he paid 
visits to Madame Lefran$ois to be able to speak of her. 
But the landlady only listened with half an ear, having 
troubles like himself. For Lheureux had at last estab- 
lished the “Favorites du Commerce,” and Hivert, who 
enjoyed a great reputation for doing errands, insisted on 
a rise of wages, and was threatening to go over “to the 
opposition shop.” 

One day when he had gone to the market at 
Argueil to sell his horse — his last resource — he met 
Rodolphe. 

They both turned pale when they caught sight of one 
another. Rodolphe, who had only sent his card, first 
stammered some apologies, then grew bolder, and even 
pushed his assurance (it was in the month of August and 
very hot) to the length of inviting him to have a bottle 
of beer at the public-house. 

Leaning on the table opposite him, he chewed his cigar 
as he talked, and Charles was lost in reverie at this face 
that she had loved. He seemed to see again something 
of her in it. It was a marvel to him. He would have 
liked to have been this man. 

The other went on talking agriculture, cattle, pasturage, 
filling out with banal phrases all the gaps where an 
allusion might slip in. Charles was not listening to 
him; Rodolphe noticed it, and he followed the succession 
of memories that crossed his face. This gradually 
grew redder; the nostrils throbbed fast, the lips quivered. 
There was at last a moment when Charles, full of a 
sombre fury, fixed his eyes on Rodolphe, who, in some- 
thing of fear, stopped talking. But soon the same look 
of weary lassitude came back to his face. 

C 439 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


“I don’t blame you,” he said. 

Rodolphe was dumb. And Charles, his head in his 
hands, went on in a broken voice, and with the resigned 
accent of infinite sorrow — 

“No, I don’t blame you now.” 

He even added a fine phrase, the only one he ever 
made — 

“It is the fault of fatality!” 

Rodolphe, who had managed the fatality, thought the 
remark very offhand from a man in his position, comic 
even, and a little mean. 

The next day Charles went to sit down on the seat 
in the arbour. Rays of light were straying through the 
trellis, the vine leaves threw their shadows on the sand, 
the jasmines perfumed the air, the heavens were blue, 
Spanish flies buzzed round the lilies in bloom, and Charles 
was suffocating like a youth beneath the vague love 
influences that filled his aching heart. 

At seven o’clock little Berthe, who had not seen him 
all the afternoon, went to fetch him to dinner. 

His head was thrown back against the wall, his eyes 
closed, his mouth open, and in his hand was a long tress 
of black hair. , 

“Come along, papa,” she said. 

And thinking he wanted to play, she pushed him 
gently. He fell to the ground. He was dead. 

Thirty-six hours after, at the druggist’s request, 
Monsieur Canivet came thither. He made a post- 
mortem and found nothing. 

When everything had been sold, twelve francs seventy- 
five centimes remained, that served to pay for Made- 
moiselle Bovary’s going to her grandmother. The 
[440 ] 


MADAME BOVARY 


good woman died the same year; old Rouault was 
paralysed, and it was an aunt who took charge of her. 
She is poor, and sends her to a cotton-factory to earn 
a living. 

Since Bovary’s death three doctors have followed 
one another at Yonville without any success, so severely 
did Homais attack them. He has an enormous practice; 
the authorities treat him with consideration, and public 
opinion protects him. 

He has just received the cross of the Legion of Honour. 





































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